Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, he studied at the Art Students League and has work exhibited on the East Coast and at the Ringling Museum in Sarasota, Florida. He has been a fellow of the National Endowment of the Arts and established his studio in Philadelphia.

Thomas Chimes was born in Philadelphia in 1921 and studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts with artists Daniel Garber, Henry McCarter and Francis Speight, before attending the Art Students League, and eventually completing a philosophy degree at Columbia University. After service in the US Army Air Forces until 1945, Chimes lived in New York and was involved in the gallery scene at the time, though quickly felt the pressure of conforming to the Abstract Expressionist mode became too confining. After a trip to Europe to visit his family’s homeland of Greece, and a months-long stay in Paris, Chimes returned to the United States and decided to permanently relocate back to Philadelphia where he still had family. While living in New York and traveling abroad, he became increasingly interested in Modernism and Abstraction, but felt that many works were too emotionally detached and self-referential. He felt pulled to establish his authentic voice and personal style, referencing his lived reality and particular time, something he could better accomplish in Philadelphia, away from the competitive New York art scene. Over the course of the rest of his life and career, Chimes made the pursuit of that authentic voice his work, reinventing himself in the process as he moved through different phases. As Michael Taylor summarized in his seminal exhibition catalogue for the retrospective exhibition at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 2007, Adventures in ‘Pataphysics, Chimes embodied “the notion of the artist as a prophet or seer who through his sensitivity and extreme clairvoyance is able to teach us about the void.” Chimes’ sensitivity to his time and cultural milieu expressed itself in different modes, which Taylor outlined as: Crucifixion Paintings, Metal Boxes, Panel Portraits and White Paintings. Freeman’s Art + Design auction on August 19 presents engaging works from each of these groups, elucidating the extraordinary depth of the artist’s work throughout his life. While Chimes’ literary and philosophical source material can appear esoteric and conceptual, his paintings remain personal, authentic and enlightening.