Biography
Thomas Benjamin Spande was born in Washington D.C. in 1972. He attended school in Bethesda, and spent weekends in Rappahannock County, Virginia, where he exhibited his early realist drawings and paintings in street fairs in Sperryville and Little Washington.
He graduated from Bowdoin College in 1996 as a Studio Art Major. His studies included work with Professor Mark Wethli, a realist artist at the time, and a summer of printmaking made possible by a Mellon Grant, which led to a one-person show at the Bowdoin College Museum of Art. He studied artistic anatomy at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in his junior year in Paris, developing a foundation of realist painting and drawing that continues to inform his work.
After graduating from the Maryland Institute College of Art's Post-Baccalaureate Program, Spande dedicated his time to a career of painting and showing art in galleries, including one he ran himself in the Hampden district of Baltimore, the Greyhouse Gallery. Spande works consistently to exhibit paintings in which balance, color, and the capturing of effects of light are embraced, while exploring a diversity of subject matter that distinguishes his oeuvre from that of most traditional painters.
“An experience, a memory, an idea, or a feeling can be captured in my paintings. Re-creating the effects of light and the way light reveals nature is my primary goal. Also of importance, are the touch of the brush, the resonance of color, and the clearest activation of the positive and negative spaces of each painting. Though I usually work in a “major key” with vibrant colors and strong shapes, I also work to achieve a sense of equanimity and balance. I take inspiration from American Realist artists such as Edward Hopper and Fairfield Porter, as well as from the world around me. It is my intention to create work that is creative and interpretive, while presenting a great amount of fidelity to things I see. Ultimately, my paintings serve as metaphor for experience.”
Read more in the November 2016 issue of the Piedmont Virginian here.
Selected Exhibitions / Gallery Representation
2014 December Holiday Group Show, Haley Fine Art, Sperryville
2011 Drawings, The Antreasian Gallery
2011 Drawings, The Middle St. Gallery
2010 Paintings, Haley Fine Art, Sperryville, VA
2010 Abstract Paintings, The Antreasian Gallery, Baltimore, MD
2010 Ten Years, Ten Artists, Ten Paintings at Haley Fine Art, Sperryville, VA
2010 Abstract Paintings, the Middle St. Gallery, Washington, VA
2010 Take It Or Leave It, the Middle St. Gallery, Washington, VA
2009 Fifty Paintings the Antreasian Gallery, Baltimore, MD
2009 Fall Nudes, the Antreasian Gallery, Baltimore, MD
2009 May, Paintings the Antreasian Gallery, Baltimore, MD
2009-2013 represented, Long View Gallery / Haley Fine Art, Sperryville, VA
2009-2012 represented, Antreasian Gallery, Baltimore, MD
2009, since 2007, represented at Craig Flinner Gallery, Baltimore, MD
2009 February-March: Abstract Paintings, with Arlen Sherwood, Middle St. Gallery, Washington, VA
2008 Christmas Show, Middle St. Gallery, Washington, VA
2008 Munder-Skiles, Madison Ave. NY, NY
2008 25th Anniversary Show, Middle St. Gallery, Washington, VA
2008 Lovers’ Leap, Middle St. Gallery, Washington, VA
2006-2008 Represented at Antreasian Gallery, Baltimore, MD
2007 Collaboration Show, Middle St. Gallery, Washington, VA
2007 Paintings and Drawings, the Antreasian Gallery, Baltimore, MD
2007 Two submissions in “Summer Nudes”, the Antreasian Gallery, Baltimore, MD
2007 Recent Work, the Middle St. Gallery, Washington, VA
2007 Recent Work, The Middle St. Gallery, Washington, VA
2007 Out of Order: Art Auction, Maryland Art Place, Baltimore, MD
2007 Landscapes and Seascapes, Antreasian Gallery, Baltimore, MD
2006 The Parlor Gallery at Ascension Lutheran Church, Baltimore, MD
2005 Maine Landscapes, GrillArt, Baltimore, MD
2004 The Middle St. Gallery, Washington, VA
2004 Represented at the Pearl Gallery, Baltimore, MD
2003 Recent Work, the Pearl Gallery, Baltimore, MD
2002 National Party Animals show, painted donkey: “Donkey Xote” assistant to artist John F. Bledsoe, installed in Washington, DC
2002 Paintings of Twilight, the Greyhouse Gallery, Baltimore, MD
2001 Solo Show: Recent Work, the Greyhouse Gallery, Baltimore, MD
2000 Solo Show, Paintings, the Middle St. Gallery, Washington, VA
Grants
1992 Mellon Grant: Awarded $3000 to compete a series of hardground cityscape etchings inspired by Giovanni Battista
Piranesi’s “Carceri d’Invenzione” series, at Bowdoin College. The final nine prints reside in the Bowdoin College Museum of Art.
Collections
Jane Livingston
Mike Chaykovsky
Andrew Haley
Robert Antreasian
Bowdoin College Museum of Art
Law Offices of Hadley, House and Rabin
The Permanent Collection of the National Institutes of Health
Education
1998-1999 Post-Baccalaureate Program, Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore, MD
1996 Magna Cum Laude, Bowdoin College, Brunswick, ME
1992-1993 Ecole des Beaux Arts, Department of Morphology, Paris, France