Thomas McKnight: Windows on Paradise

by Thomas McKnight, Thomas McKnight

The wide appeal of McKnight's world is explained in part by its mixture of wild beauty and domestic luxury. His idyllic islands in the sun invariably include aspects of the developed culture he considers indispensable. McKnight's paradise has the best of everything -- what better definition of heaven can there be?Clearly and strongly, his beautiful images of places near and far appeal to our senses -- his lush but subtle color, his charming and elegant compositions, his skillful rendering of form -- these qualities we admire and enjoy in the works of master artists of all time.Thomas McKnight's work is in the collections of major museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and millions of his paintings and silk-screen prints have sold through galleries and print stores across the nation. McKnight, who has devoted his time exclusively to art since 1972, is best known for his pictures of serene and beautiful rooms. These inviting, jewel-toned spaces have large windows or archways overlooking equally attractive outdoors scenes both local (Boston Public Garden or Manhattan Penthouse) and exotic (Venice, Parts, or the Greek isles).

Genres: Art, Nonfiction

190 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 1990

About the author

homas McKnight is a U.S. artist. He was born in 1941 in Lawrence, Kansas. He attended Wesleyan University, a small liberal arts college in Middletown, Connecticut, where he was one of only five art majors. He spent his junior year in Paris. After a year of graduate work in art history at Columbia University, in 1964 McKnight found a job at Time Magazine where he would work for eight years, interrupted by a two-year stint in the U. S. Army in South Korea. In 1972 McKnight left Time, summered on the Greek island of Mykonos, and commenced painting in earnest. In 1979 in Mykonos, McKnight met Renate, a vacationing Austrian student, and married the following year. Throughout the 1980s McKnight's art, mainly limited edition serigraph prints, became increasingly popular.
In 1994 he was commissioned by the White House to paint the first of three images for President Bill Clinton’s official Christmas card. One of these, "White House Red Room", was used as the cover of a Lands' End catalog, which sold both the art and the original as one of the Christmas gift items.
McKnight's work is represented in the permanent collection of New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, as well as in the Smithsonian Institution.
McKnight and his wife live in Litchfield, Connecticut.

Reviews

[JKR · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought this suffered in comparison to Voyage to Paradise - which is an earlier book - as the artist’s paintings are more pleasingly presented there.

[Barbara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very informative book about one of my favorite artists and his works.