Tom Cramer is an American artist working in Portland,

Oregon Oregon () is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of its eastern boundary with Idaho. T ...

noted for his intricately carved and painted wood reliefs and ubiquity throughout the city of Portland. Often called the unofficial Artist Laureate of Portland, Cramer is one of the most visible and successful artists in the city. The influences on his work are both organic and technological. He is widely collected and is in many prominent west coast museum and private collections. He is in the permanent collections of the

Portland Art Museum The Portland Art Museum in Portland, Oregon, United States, was founded in 1892, making it one of the oldest art museums on the West Coast and seventh oldest in the US. Upon completion of the most recent renovations, the Portland Art Museum beca ...

in Portland Oregon, the Halle Ford Museum in Salem Oregon, the Jordan Schnitzer Museum in Eugene, Oregon, the

Boise Art Museum The Boise Art Museum (BAM) is located at 670 Julia Davis Drive in Boise, Idaho, and is part of a series of public museums and cultural attractions in Julia Davis Park. It is the permanent home of a growing collection of contemporary realism, mod ...

in Idaho. Cramer made a name for himself in the 1980s and 1990s becoming a bridge between historical Oregon artists like Clifford Gleason and Milton Wilson and the international influx of new artists to the city since the mid-1990s. Tom Cramer grew up in

Portland, Oregon Portland (, ) is a port city in the Pacific Northwest and the list of cities in Oregon, largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Situated at the confluence of the Willamette River, Willamette and Columbia River, Columbia rivers, Portland is ...

in a musical family and played French horn in the

Portland Youth Philharmonic The Portland Youth Philharmonic (PYP) is the oldest youth orchestra in the United States, established in 1924 as the Portland Junior Symphony (PJS). Now based in Portland, Oregon, the orchestra's origin dates back to 1910, when music teacher Mary ...

in the late 1970s. He first started drawing in 1973 during this period and gradually became more interested in visual art. His first serious art classes in high school were followed by later instruction at the Museum Art School (later called the Pacific NW College of Art) in

as well as Pratt Institute in New York. Cramer went to the same high school as Gus Van Sant and appeared briefly in his feature film ''

My Own Private Idaho ''My Own Private Idaho'' is a 1991 American independent adventure drama film written and directed by Gus Van Sant, loosely based on Shakespeare's ''Henry IV, Part 1'', '' Henry IV, Part 2'', and ''Henry V''. The story follows two friends, Mike ...

''. A Cramer painted VW Van appeared in Van Sant’s '' Even Cowgirls Get the Blues''. While in New York - Cramer encountered the likes of many artists including

Keith Haring Keith Allen Haring (May 4, 1958 – February 16, 1990) was an American artist whose pop art emerged from the New York City graffiti subculture of the 1980s. His animated imagery has "become a widely recognized visual language". Much of his wor ...

, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Mike Bidlo, Kent Floeter. The Primitive/Modern show and High/Low shows had special influence as did the burgeoning East Village art scene. Cramer returned to Portland, Oregon in the mid-1980s and quickly became well known via many shows at the Folkcraft Gallery and later the Jamison Thomas Gallery. There he expanded his show base to Los Angeles and San Francisco - as well as the Jamison Thomas Gallery in New York. He later had one person shows at the Blue Gallery, the Butters Gallery, the Pulliam Gallery as well as the Mark Woolley Gallery. From 2006 - 2013, he was with the Laura Russo Gallery. Currently he is represented by The Augen Gallery in Portland and the Imogen Gallery in Astoria. A show of carved wood reliefs and drawings for the

Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art :''see also the ''Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art'', Washington State University, Pullman, Washington Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art (JSMA) is an art museum located on the campus of the University of Oregon in Eugene, Oregon. The original building ...

took place in Fall 2019. Tom Cramer has always been heavily influenced by classical as well as modern popular music. He has cited an improvisational approach to his creative process that is not unlike a musical approach. Key musical influences include

Bach Johann Sebastian Bach (28 July 1750) was a German composer and musician of the late Baroque period. He is known for his orchestral music such as the ''Brandenburg Concertos''; instrumental compositions such as the Cello Suites; keyboard wor ...

Beethoven Ludwig van Beethoven (baptised 17 December 177026 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist. Beethoven remains one of the most admired composers in the history of Western music; his works rank amongst the most performed of the classic ...

Bruckner Josef Anton Bruckner (; 4 September 182411 October 1896) was an Austrian composer, organist, and music theorist best known for his symphonies, masses, Te Deum and motets. The first are considered emblematic of the final stage of Austro-Germa ...

Klaus Schulze Klaus Schulze (4 August 1947 – 26 April 2022) was a German electronic music pioneer, composer and musician. He also used the alias Richard Wahnfried and was a member of the Krautrock bands Tangerine Dream, Ash Ra Tempel, and The Cosmic Jokers ...

, Future Sound of London and

Miles Davis Miles Dewey Davis III (May 26, 1926September 28, 1991) was an American trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. He is among the most influential and acclaimed figures in the history of jazz and 20th-century music. Davis adopted a variety of musi ...

. He became well known in the 1980s and 1990s for his painted cars as well as large scale colorful murals. He later designed costumes and sets for James Canfield's, "Jungle" with a soundtrack by the Future Sound of London. In the 1980s, he began his painted and carved wood reliefs which became his most noteworthy works. He also does carved/painted furniture and objects, as well as continuing his work in drawing and oil painting. His best known mural, "Machine", from 1989 was demolished in 2017. However, he has recently been doing a series of new murals around Portland, Oregon. Several recent trips to India, Egypt and Europe have expanded his base of influences. Tom Cramer continues to work in a variety of media - including drawing, painted relief carving, murals and oil on canvas paintings.

The Machine

Tom-Cramer-1977-320i-art-car-and-machine-mural

Cramer's best-known mural, “Machine” was painted in 1989. In February 2016, the building on which "Machine" was painted changed ownership, and “Machine” became endangered. This sparked a community response to save the mural at a time when new developments were threatening sites throughout a city noted for its artistic personality. "Machine" was demolished in 2017 and a new mural by Cramer now resides on the new building in its place, a bridge between so called "Old Portland" and "New Portland".

References

External links

Tom Cramer
(Website One)
Tom Cramer
(Website Two) * {{DEFAULTSORT:Cramer, Tom Living people Artists from Portland, Oregon Pacific Northwest College of Art alumni Pratt Institute alumni Psychedelic art Pacific Northwest artists 1960 births