Artist Tom Hughes left the right coast for the left and has painted full time in California for more than twenty years. Working in oil, acrylic, and watercolor, he pictures the California landscape from cityscapes to mountain vistas. Inspired, perhaps, by his revolutionary Massachusetts forbears, Tom Hughes gave up college to work as a newspaper staff artist. After several years he succumbed to the siren call of fine art. His paintings have been featured in books and magazines, and his work is represented by art galleries on both coasts. He is a member of Plein-Air Painters of America and won the grand prize at the group’s convention in 2019.
California 2021 monthly wall calendar features: Large blocks for notes | Beautiful reproduction | Quality heavy-weight paper | Deluxe 11- by 14-inch size
Paintings by Tom Hughes featured for 2021 include:
Little Truckee River
Oil on panel, 36 by 48 inches
Private collection
Carson River, Hope Valley
Oil on panel, 12 by 16 inches
Private collection
Early Spring, Sonoma
Oil on panel, 16 by 20 inches
Private collection
Wine Country
Oil on panel, 16 by 20 inches
Private collection
Spring Shadows
Oil on panel, 18 by 18 inches
Private collection
Blackwood Canyon
Watercolor on paper, 18 by 24 inches
Private collection
In the Sierra
Oil on panel, 26 by 32 inches
Private collection
Golden Gate
Oil on panel, 8 by 10 inches
Private collection
Packing Out
Oil on canvas, 24 by 32 inches
Little Lakes Valley Autumn
Acrylic on canvas, 24 by 24 inches
Private collection
Sixth Lake
Oil on panel, 36 by 48 inches
Private collection
Winter Light
Oil on panel, 28 by 32 inches
Private collection
About Painter Tom Hughes
Born in Massachusetts in 1965, as a young adult Tom Hughes abandoned college to work as a staff artist at the Christian Science Monitor newspaper in Boston in the 1980s. After several years, he left the newspaper to practice fine art, at which he’s been occupied for more than three decades.
Proficient in several painting media including oil, acrylic, and watercolor, he paints subjects ranging from figures, portraits, landscapes and the odd still-life or genre picture. Hughes’s work has been featured in American Artist Watercolor magazine, Fine Art Connoisseur (for which he painted a portrait of the magazine’s publisher, B. Eric Rhoads), and Southwest Art magazine. An example of Hughes's watercolor painting is featured in Watercolor Painting by Tom Hoffmann (Watson Guptill, 2012).
Once referred to as a “genius” by the late artist and author Charles Movalli, Hughes has shown his work at solo exhibitions in galleries in California, the New England states, North Carolina, and France.
In 2019, Tom Hughes won the $15,000 Grand Prize for his painting Fog at Back Cove at the PleinAir Salon art competition in San Francisco, CA. In 2018, Tom Hughes was made a signature member of the Plein-Air Painters of America. After 21 years in California, Hughes returned to paint his native New England in 2020.
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