Thomas Akawie was a leading Post-war Bay Area artist who worked in a variety of styles over the course of several decades and was known for experimental approaches to painting. Born in New York City in 1935, Akawie grew up in Los Angeles, where he first studied art at Los Angeles City College and the Olympic Art Guild. He later attended the University of California, Berkeley, where he received a Bachelor of Art in Art History (1959) and a Master of Art in Painting (1963). Akawie was recognized as a pioneer of airbrush and spray painting in art, particularly with a large body of work that he produced in the 1960s and 70s, and developed one of the first college-level courses for the medium at the San Francisco Art Institute, where he taught for several decades. He was also associated with the Visionary art movement, which spans global art circles and utilizes mystical and futurist symbols in addition to spiritual and metaphysical themes.
Akwaie’s work has been shown at art institutions across the U.S. such as the Whitney Museum of American Art, Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, Denver Art Museum, San Francisco MoMA, Oakland Museum of California and California Palace of Legion and Honor, and Los Angeles County Museum of Art. During his lifetime, his exhibitions were reviewed in publications like Art Forum and Art International and included in catalogs and books on American art. In addition to painting, he taught art at the university level, serving as a Guest Faculty at University of California Berkeley, an Assistant Professor at California State University, Los Angeles, and a Professor of Fine Art at the San Francisco Art Institute between 1966 and 1999. His paintings are held in the collections of the Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art at Utah State University, SFMoMA, and Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, and the Oakland Museum of California, among others.
