Early Life

Tom Gilleon was born in 1942 in Gainesville, Florida. His parents, with three children to raise—including an older sister stricken with polio—sent him to live in the country with his grandparents near Starke, Florida. In a home with no electricity, evening entertainment was sketching and storytelling by kerosene lamp. Tom learned to draw by watching his immigrant grandfather draw, a gifted artist and cabinetmaker from Scotland. Tom’s grandmother was full-blood Cherokee. Also an artist, she strongly aligned herself with Native American culture and made sure Tom learned survival skills—hunting, fishing, gathering edible plants and, above all, dependence on no one. She taught Tom how to shoot a rifle shortly after he learned to walk.

Unlike most children, Tom grew up amongst acres of towering pines and a yard made of white sand—a never ending blank canvas upon which to draw. It was there Tom’s art career began to manifest. He created hundreds of drawings with a stick in the sand. Starting with the horizon for spatial definition—he drew the ocean. Then he intersected it with the mast of a ship. By adding a triangle and half-circle to draw a boat and sail, he learned the power of geometric shapes to tell stories.  In later years, Tom would incorporate these lessons with his mastery of luminosity, color, and visual storytelling he would learn from some of America’s greatest painters while illustrating at Disney.  But it was his passion for the American West that finally inspired his fine art career—giving rise to his world renowned style of Contemporary Art.

In 1965 Tom was hired as a communications specialist by Pan American World Airlines, a defense contractor deeply involved in America’s move toward space. He settled at Patrick Air Force Base near Cape Canaveral as the same time as astronauts Gus Grissom, Wally Schirra, and Alan Shepard. Tom was tasked with transmitting messages to down range ships throughout the Caribbean and also served as a radio operator aboard the tracking ship USNS Arnold. It wasn’t long before Tom’s artistic talents were discovered by the Art Department at Pan Am and they promptly reassigned him to illustrate NASA’s Saturn and Apollo space programs. Tom recalls, “I transferred from being an electronics communicator to a visual communicator.” It was in this position that Tom learned the discipline of drafting, technical precision, and the elimination of all unnecessary detail within his art.

Tom and Shirley welcomed three children—Tom Jr. in 1964, Cherie in 1966, and Dan in 1967. At the time, Tom was still freelancing at night and building quite a following. Tom moved his young family to New York in 1969 after being hired by an startup computer company, Mohawk Data Sciences—one of the country’s first high tech firms, to produce their marketing materials. A vivid memory he recalls from his time in New York is walking the grounds of The Woodstock Music Festival the day after it closed, adding, “Timing is everything”.

The 1990s    

After spending most of the previous decade illustrating theme parks, attractions, and shows for Disney—living in Montana inspired Tom to develop a fine art career. Increasingly, his works portrayed the land and history of the American West in a modernist style. Latigo & Lace Gallery in Augusta, Montana, became the first art gallery to represent Tom’s paintings for sale.

Tom and Laurie sold their ranch in Augusta in 1994 and purchased a 2,000 acre ranch on the banks of the Missouri River in Cascade, Montana. The ranch was rich with history and had been visited by Lewis & Clark in 1805. In later years it had become a favorite watering hole for famous western painter, Charlie Russell, who was best friends with the family from whom Tom bought the ranch. Russell wintered his horse in the very same barn where Tom keeps his horse today. Tom rides the same cedar post fence to Square Butte that Russell rode and paints the same scenery Russell painted 100 years ago. In this way, it moves one to contemplate how the spirit of Charlie Russell flows through Tom and informs the colorful, contemporary style of his works today. Both Montana ranchers and artists; both hardy, entertaining, self-sufficient men of the West with values for freedom and independence.

Tom’s oil and digital paintings are held in the permanent collections of  C. M. Russell Museum, Booth Museum of Western Art, National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum, Denver Museum of Art, Scottsdale Museum of the West, the Whitney Western Art Museum, the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry, NASA, United States Air Force, The Walt Disney Company, Universal Studios, and Warner Bros. Studios.

Tom was inducted as a founding member of the C. M. Russell Museum Skull Society of Artists in 2015. He was honored to be recognized as a modern day link between the great American artists of the late 19th century with the artists of today’s Contemporary Art movement.

Following a 2019 exhibition of his work at the Briscoe Western Art Museum in San Antonio, Texas, Tom found himself approaching his 80th birthday and desiring to turn his focus on creating a legacy for his children. He shifted from gallery representation to self-representation with the sole focus to create museum quality artwork. He refers to this transition as Vision 2020 and all future works are stamped “MMXX” to designate his masterworks.

His 72 x 60 inches oil painting, Mourning Star, sold for $350,000 at the C.M. Russell Museum Auction in 2021, setting a new record for a living artist at that auction.  His 50 x 80 inches oil painting Dirge With Black Feet sold for $375,000 at The Autry Museum’s 25th Annual Masters of the American West in 2022.

His original oil paintings may be purchased from Montana Trails Gallery in Bozeman, MT; Sorrel Sky Gallery in Durango, CO and Santa Fe, NM; Shari Brownfield Fine Art in Jackson, WY; and Sanders Gallery in Tuscon, AZ.

Exclusively represented by KingArts, Tom Gilleon's oil and digital paintings are also exhibited for sale at https://www.tomgilleon.art and by private appointment at the Gilleon Fine Art Gallery in Great Falls, MT.