Thomas McKnight is a contemporary American landscape painter. He is best known for his paintings which donned Bill and Hillary Clinton’s Presidential Christmas cards from 1994-1996. The artist’s acrylic paintings depict real and imagined landscapes in flat, vibrant colors. “I try to integrate what is real about a place or thing with its underlying truth—that is, its invisible soul,” McKnight has said. “In the process, I try to create symbolic reality that can serve as a catalyst for emotions—nostalgia, joy, the sadness of time passing.” Born in 1941 in Lawrence, KS, McKnight received his formal training at Wesleyan University in Middletown, CT, and studied art history at Columbia University. He is represented in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum in New York and the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C. The artist lives and works in Litchfield, CT.
