The following is from Steve Zimmerman who writes: I have known the artist for over 20 years. I have several of his paintings in my collection, helped him organize the retrospective of his work at the R.W. Norton Museum in Shreveport, LA back in 1984, and personally placed over 50 paintings in collections throughout the Midwest.

Essentially a self-taught artist, Emmitt Thames, born October 28, 1933 in Brookhaven, Mississippi, progressed from a rural depression-era childhood into the ranks of the leading American realists. His youth spawned a hard working, somewhat reclusive man, who honed his innate skills for observation and composition into representational art that can accurately be described as "more feeling than formula".

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