Born in 1976 in Plainfield, New Jersey and raised in New York, Hank Willis Thomas earned a BFA from New York University, New York, NY (1998) and an MA/MFA from the California College of the Arts, San Francisco, CA (2004). Additionally, he has received honorary doctorates from the Maryland Institute of Art, Baltimore, MD and the Institute for Doctoral Studies in the Visual Arts, Portland, ME in 2017.
Thomas’ work has been exhibited internationally and is collected by the Museum of Modern Art, Brooklyn Museum and Whitney Museum of American Art in New York; the High Museum of Art in Atlanta; and the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C., among others. Thomas is a recipient of the Gordon Parks Foundation Fellowship (2019), The Guggenheim Fellowship (2018), AIMIA | AGO Photography Prize (2017), Soros Equality Fellowship (2017), Aperture West Book Prize (2008), Renew Media Arts Fellowship from the Rockefeller Foundation (2007), and the New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship Award (2006). He is a former member of the Public Design Commission for the City of New York.
Attribution: University of Arizona Museum of Art LOVERULES exhibition
