ABOUT THOMAS VAN STEIN
Thomas Van Stein M.A. in Art
California State University, Northridge
Growing up in Burbank, California Thomas attended California State University, Northridge, studying under artists like Houston Conwill, Norman Fullner, Tom Fricano, and Hans Burkhardt. His illustration skills were enhanced and directed by American Illustrator Barry Jackson.
Thomas also attended Art Center, where he met his mentor American impressionist painter, Dan McCaw, guiding Thomas in a deeper understanding and philosophy of the art spirit, based on design and color relationships mixed with a dry sense of humor. After taking a year off to travel the world Thomas sketched and painted more diligently. Eventually Thomas settled in Santa Barbara, California, a region already rich with the legacy of plein air landscape painters like Carl Oscar Borg, Colin Campbell Cooper, and Ray Strong. In 1988 Thomas connected with Artists Arturo Tello and Ray Strong, and began painting the classic California Landscape on Santa Cruz Island. He was then honored to become a member of the OAK Group, a nationally recognized organization of plein air artists dedicated to preserving open space.
In 1992, Thomas began teaching Art, through Santa Barbara City College Continuing Education. He also began entering art festivals. He won first prize at the Catalina Island Art Festival, juried by Christopher Lance, in both Most Original Art and Best of Show. Arturo Tello introduced to him the genre of painting night scenes on location. After three solo exhibitions, with Nocturnes as a theme, Thomas returned to Cal State University Northridge to achieve his Master’s Degree. Studying under American Artist Bruce Everett, Thomas spent two years wandering the dark eerie nights in urban settings. “I was to paint unsellable art, for two years, setting up in locations nobody likes to go at night.” In 1999, for his diligence and tenacity, Thomas received the Hans Burkhardt Award in painting, and graduated cum laude with a Master’s Degree in Art. During this time, he entered into and won his first National Juried Exhibition held at the Abend Gallery in Denver Colorado, juried by Nationally Acclaimed artist Quang Ho. Thomas wrote an article on night painting, and was published as the cover artist for the September 1996 issue of, “The Artist’s” Magazine. During his quest for a master’s degree, Thomas received private commissions that sent him to paint in Lake Como, Italy, and Segovia, Spain. He also met his new Mentor, Ovanes Berberian, and soon began studying the depth and value of the Russian palette, in his workshops in
Carpinteria and Idaho. Both Ovanes and Dan McCaw studied under Sergei Bongart, so their legacy continued to inspire through Thomas’s art.
In the early 2000’s, Thomas achieved gallery representation and a solo exhibition of his Moonlight Nocturnes at the Eleanor Ettinger Gallery in New York City. He also won the Individual Artist Award for Santa Barbara County, and both First Prize and Director’s Choice in the Carnegie Art Museum in Oxnard California’s Classic Art Competition. In 2005, he had his first Solo Museum Exhibition at the Carnegie Art Museum in Oxnard, featuring thirty new Urban Nocturne paintings.
Thomas regularly teaches night painting workshops in Santa Barbara. In 2006 one of His workshops became a fourteen page feature article in the Fall issue of the American Artist Workshops Magazine about his processes and techniques for Nocturnal Painting. While continuing to teach art classes and workshops in various locations, in California and Mexico, Thomas exhibits his paintings annually in both solo and group exhibitions. Through his national and international connections, he has received numerous commissions to travel and produce paintings here in the United States and Europe. In 2021-2022 his training in illustration and ability to render his drawings in pen and ink has landed him the opportunity to create an entire brand of wine labels, called Crosshatch Wines. In 2023, Edible Magazine awarded him with Wine Label illustration of the Year.
Thomas continues to enter into and receive awards in plein air festivals in California and Idaho. Thomas, and his wife Cyndi, spend time in both Santa Barbara, CA and in the Northern Rockies, painting the dramatic light-filled landscapes around Sun Valley, Idaho, Yellowstone Jackson Hole, Wyoming.
