John F. Thamm - Artist

About The Artist

Born in Wendell, Idaho, John grew up in Spokane, WA and received his BFA and MFA from the University of Idaho. He moved on to New York City with a Ford Foundation scholarship to the Art Students League and studied portraiture with S. Edward Oppenheim. He owned a gallery in Greenwich Village where he met his mentor and friend Jack Levine.

In 1978, John returned to Spokane and was an art instructor with the Community Colleges of Spokane. He became friends with one of his students, Bob Ross, who was stationed at Fairchild Air Force Base. They would paint together at John’s studio in Peaceful Valley. Bob was fascinated by John’s portrait technique that he called the “Wipe-Out” method. Later when Bob had launched his “Joy of Painting” series on PBS, he filmed two instructional videos featuring John and his portrait technique. Those videos can still be purchased from the Bob Ross Company. After Bob’s death in 1995, the Bob Ross Company invited John to teach his portrait technique in the United States and Holland. Years later he also offered workshops for the Farbi Flora Company in Berlin, Germany.

John was a courtroom sketch artist for TV and newspaper media including CNN, ABC, AP, KREM TV, KXLY TV and the Spokesman Review. Notable trials he has covered were Ruby Ridge, the Branch Davidian-Waco Trial, and the Aryan Nations trial in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. John’s portrait of the lawyer, Gerry Spence, is in the attorney’s private art collection.

John’s first book, published in June 2010 “ Vets: Fifty Portraits of Veterans and Their Stories”features area servicemen and women from every branch of the armed forces who fought in wars from World War II-Iraq. John set up an easel in the lobby of the Mann-Grandstaff VA Medical Center and painted the veteran’s portraits and recorded their stories. The show of the paintings was featured at the VA Medical Center and on the PBS affiliate KSPS Northwest Profiles.  

In 2016, John started painting the Republican candidates during the Presidential election debates.  The first piece was of Donald Trump called “Bark, Smirk, and Pucker”.  He displayed the piece in his gallery in Bisbee and had such amazing response to the painting that he decided to paint all the candidates and expanded to Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Jill Stein and Gary Johnson.  He launched the show called “CHOICE ?” at his gallery in Bisbee and at the Kolva-Sullivan Gallery in Spokane, WA. Then John decided to paint all of the Presidents in vivid color and by Fall 2017 launched “The Presidential Collection” at his gallery in Bisbee. In 2019 the Spokane County Library featured the “Presidential Collection” original paintings in eleven libraries.The public’s response to the pieces was so positive that John published his second book, “The Presidential Collection” with quotes by each president.

In 2020 when the shutdown due to Covid struck Bisbee, John was in his studio looking out on the deserted streets of Bisbee at the height of the tourist season. He produced a series of 20 paintings reflecting the loneliness and quiet in Bisbee on Main Street. The series is known as Bisbee 2020.

Back in Bisbee in 2022, John launched another painting series called “Cultural Heroes and Heroines of My Youth”. portraits of rock stars from the 60’s, 70’s. 80’s. The work can be viewed live at Shotgun Studios.

In May of 2023, John sold his studio and gallery of 23 years in Bisbee Arizona. He produced a large volume of work in Bisbee and loved his time and connections there. Bisbee will be missed.

But as usual big things are in the making. John is busy designing Shotgun Studios private pocket sculpture garden on the Centennial Trail in Bisbee. He is presently featuring work by Rick Davis and Roch Fautch. A collaboration of the Shotgun Artists is designing his premier sculpture-The Big Shot. Stay tuned. It will be BIG.