Thom O’Connor, printmaker and teacher, was born in Detroit, Michigan in 1937. He studied at the University of Michigan and received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Florida State University and his Master of Fine Arts degree from Cranbrook Academy of Art.

He was the recipient of a printer fellowship at Tamarind Lithography Workshop, Los Angeles, in 1964, a Fulbright grant and National Endowment for the Arts grant. A master technician, O’Connor was an early pioneer of digital printmaking and photo-polymer plate technology for fine art printing. He was professor of art at the State University of New York, Albany from 1960 until he retired in 2000. O’Connor also taught at the Swedish Academy of Fine Arts and the Finnish Academy and was a visiting professor at the University of Michigan.

Thom O’Connor’s work is represented in the collections of the Baltimore Museum of Art, Maryland; the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York; the Amon-Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, Texas; the Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indiana; the British Museum, London; the Museum of Modern Art, and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; the Memorial Art Gallery, University of Rochester, New York; the Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena, California; and the National Gallery of Art and the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.