Tom Cramer papers

Tom Cramer was born on February 9, 1960 in Portland, Oregon. He attended the Catlin Gabel School in Portland, the Museum Art School (later known as the Pacific Northwest College of Art), and the Pratt Institute in New York. He is best known for his colorful murals, painted cars and motorcycles, and intricate wood-relief paintings. His art is influenced by his environment, music, and various cultures including Indian, African American, and indigenous peoples of the Northwest coastal region.

Cramer began drawing at the age of 12 and quickly became interested in visual art. He was mentored by Portland modernists Clifford Gleason and Milton Wilson and his work is often viewed as a bridge between this earlier generation of artists and the younger artists in Portland. By the mid-1980s, Cramer became popular through his shows at the Folk Craft Gallery in Portland, Oregon and the Jamison Thomas Galleries in Portland, Oregon and New York. His work was also shown in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York, as well as various Portland, Oregon galleries including the Butters Gallery, the Pulliam Gallery, the Mark Woolley Gallery, and the Laura Russo Gallery. From 1994-1997, Cramer worked with James Canfield and the Oregon Ballet Theatre to design sets and costumes for ballets. In 1989 Cramer painted his iconic mural “Machine” on a warehouse building on North Williams Avenue in Portland, Oregon. “Machine” helped change and increase the value of the neighborhood. In 2016, the mural’s existence was jeopardized when the warehouse was purchased by a developer who planned to demolish the warehouse in order to construct a new building called Parallax. In 2017, after much controversy, deliberation, and threatened legal action, Cramer and the developer settled amicably. The mural was destroyed when the warehouse was demolished with the agreement that Cramer would paint a new mural on Parallax.

Tom Cramer’s current work is built upon his style of the late 1990s with a focus on merging painting and relief wood carving with a less vibrant color palette. His work is included in permanent galleries at the Hallie Ford Museum of Art at Willamette University in Salem, Oregon; the Portland Art Museum in Portland, Oregon; the Jordan Schnitzer Museum at the University of Oregon in Eugene, Oregon; and the Boise Art Museum in Boise, Idaho. He is currently represented by the Augen Gallery in Portland, Oregon and the Imogen Gallery in Astoria, Oregon.