REPRESENTED ARTIST
About Tom
Tom was born and raised in Mill Valley, California, on the slopes of Mt. Tamalpais. The rugged scenery of Marin County and Northern California inspired him from an early age to create landscape prints using linoleum and wood, strongly influenced by the traditional Japanese Ukiyo-ë style of Hokusai and Hiroshige.
Artist Collection: Tom-Killion
Gallery
Each of Tom Killion’s prints is full of life – with playful lines, graphic designs and rich color or tone – but there is also sincerity to it in the way it promotes a nearly unadulterated landscape worthy of our social values and appreciation.
“For as long as I can remember I have spent part of every summer and a good many winter weeks in the Sierra Nevada. The magical landscapes and eco-niches of Yosemite have inspired my art, and eventually my Japanese-style woodcut prints, since my father first took me to the Valley in 1961. The Park and the whole range never ceases to provoke me to put pen and brush to paper. Five minutes walk from the pavement anywhere, in any direction, and the world is always new; a few hours or days hike from the trailhead and I am in a whole new universe of enchantment.”
Tom Killion
REPRESENTED ARTIST
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Tom Killion
Tom Killion
Tom Killion
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More About Tom Killion
Education
Tom studied History at UC Santa Cruz, where he was introduced to fine book printing by William Everson and Jack Stauffacher. He also has his doctorate in African History from Stanford University completed in 1985.
Selected Collections And Publications
In 1975, Tom produced his first illustrated book on UCSC's Cowell Press. After traveling extensively in Europe and Africa, Killion returned to Santa Cruz in 1977 and founded his own Quail Press, where he published his second book, "Fortress Marin". In 1978, Killion began graduate studies in African History at Stanford University, completing a doctorate on Ethiopia in 1985. He also continued to make woodcut prints of the California landscape, producing his large-format "The Coast of California" in 1979. During the early 1980s, Tom divided his time between history research in Europe and Africa, and the development of his multi-color woodcut prints.
During 1987-1988, Killion worked as administrator of a medical relief program in a camp for Ethiopian refugees in Sudan and traveled with nationalist rebels in war-torn Eritrea. In 1990, after many years of work, Tom produced "Walls: A Journey Across Three Continents" -- an extensively illustrated travel book combining his African experiences with woodcut printmaking. Killion then devoted four years to teaching African History at Bowdoin College, Maine.
In 1995, Tom worked on a new hand-printed, large-format book, "The High Sierra of California" in collaboration with Pulitzer prize-winning poet Gary Snyder. The new book was published in a trade edition in 2002 and received a number of awards. In 2008 Tom and Gary published a second collaboration, "Tamalpais Walking," and in 2015 his third collaboration with Snyder and Heyday Books, "California's Wild Edge: The Coast in Poetry, History and Prints."
Teaching
During 1987-1988, Killion worked as administrator of a medical relief program in a camp for Ethiopian refugees in Sudan and traveled with nationalist rebels in war-torn Eritrea. In 1990 Killion then devoted four years to teaching African History at Bowdoin College, Maine. In 1994 he was a Fulbright scholar at Asmara University in Eritrea, where he lived for a year with his wife and their one-year-old son.
In 1995, Tom returned to California and taught in the Humanities Department at San Francisco State University.
Connect
Instagram: @tomkillion
Explore Tom's Photographs
Tom Killion Prints
Tom Killion Prints
Tom Killion Prints
Tom Killion Prints
