Collection: Thomas Blackshear II

Thomas Blackshear II graduated from the American Academy of Art in Chicago in 1977. Blackshear worked for a year for the Hallmark Card Company in Kansas City, Missouri and by 1980, he was working as head illustrator for Godbold/Richter Studio. Blackshear became a freelance illustrator in 1982 and has been self-employed ever since.

Known for his dramatic lighting and sensitivity to mood, Blackshear has produced illustrations for advertising, books, calendars, collectors’ plates, greeting cards, magazines, postage stamps, and national posters. His clients range from Disney Pictures, Lucasfilm, and Universal Studios to International Wildlife and National Geographic.

In 1995, Blackshear created Ebony Visions, which has been the number-one-selling black figurine collectible in the United States for the past twenty years. Blackshear won the National Association of Limited Edition Dealers’ Artist of the Year in 1999, and International Collectible Artist of the Year Award in 2001 for that line. In 2006, Blackshear had a one-man show through the Vatican where he unveiled his painting, Pope John Paul II.

Blackshear’s recent “Western Nouveau” paintings have been featured on the covers of Art of the West and Western Art Collector, and his Western Art continues to win awards and find new audiences. In 2020, Blackshear was inducted into the Society of Illustrators Hall of Fame. A retrospective book of his paintings is soon to be published.

Blackshear is represented by Broadmoor Galleries in Colorado Springs, Colorado, as well as Trailside Galleries in Jackson, Wyoming and Scottsdale, Arizona.