Remembering Lenore Thomas

From the Department of Studio Arts:

Lenore Thomas, Associate Professor in the Department of Studio Arts at the University of Pittsburgh, passed away peacefully on October 21, 2025. Thomas joined the department in 2007 and taught courses in intaglio, screenprint, and drawing as well as the department's capstone courses. She worked with dozens of students in directed study and as faculty mentor for funded undergraduate research projects through the Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences and the Frederick Honors College. Thomas served as Advisor (2015-2019), Chair (2021-2024), and mentor to both faculty and students. In 2022, she co-founded the artist-in-residence program between Studio Arts and the Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies program, now known as the Lenore Thomas and Laura Lovett GSWS and Studio Arts Residency. She is remembered as a talented artist, committed educator, beloved colleague, and was instrumental in shaping the Studio Arts Department at Pitt.

Thomas’ art practice explored the delicate interplay between the visible and the hidden. Her work reveals the quiet beauty found in close vulnerable observation. Her series “Turtles All the Way Down” deals with repeated pattern, color created in intaglio and screenprint, a vocabulary of folded paper, and incorporates laser cutting and CNC to create cutouts in acrylic and MDF. The logic of repetition creates visual rhythms that are subtly disrupted through irregular ‘imperfections’ that emerge through the printmaking process. This play of patterns and their subtle variations invite slow looking. In a recent interview, Thomas remarks that the works in the series “look deceptively simple and are some of the most complicated pieces I have ever made.” 

Thomas and artist Ivette Spradlin have been collaborating under the name Buff since 2015. They have worked on several bodies of work that place Thomas’ screen printing and Spradlin’s photography into extended conversations that make visible the ways the built environment bears traces of everyday lived experience. Their mixed media photographic prints reframe “buffs” (painted out graffiti on buildings) into unintentional compositions that reference color field painting. 

Thomas has been recognized for her creative research through grants, residencies, and exhibitions. She was the recipient of a Hewlett International Travel Grant, a Flight School Fellowship in partnership with Creative Capital, and a Silver Eye Center for Photography Fellowship for her work with Buff. Notable residencies include two Edition Basel residencies, Vermont Studio Center, and Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts.  Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally including in New York, Los Angeles Chicago, San Francisco, Estonia, China, Argentina, Portugal, and Switzerland. Her most recent exhibition, Lenore Thomas: When the Sun Is Out, I Think I love You Better, was on view April-May 2025 at Concept Gallery in Pittsburgh. 

Art making and teaching were parallel currents throughout Thomas’ career. She became a certified K-12 teacher shortly after completing her undergraduate studies in fine art and religious studies at Lawrence University in Appleton, WI. After teaching elementary school, she completed an MFA in printmaking at the University of Wisconsin-Madison with the intent to pursue her passions for art and art education.

Thomas believed sincerely about the importance of “teaching with compassion,” and this mindset made her impact on students and colleagues undeniable.

Once in college, a classmate asked me what I want to do after graduating, I answered “to be an artist?” with an unsure question mark at the end. Lenore—being one of the coolest artists and people I looked up to—said “I can totally see you being an artist.” Almost 6 years later, her words still echo in my head... The way Lenore talks, the way she makes me trust the process, the way she lives her life, and the consistent details of how she carries herself around… all those aspects made her who she was, and make her a mentor that I admire and miss dearly. (Lu)

Lenore’s mark is all around us in Studio Arts and in our community. I see it in the ways she transformed our print studios and expanded our horizons in print and in all areas. It’s in the work of alumni and for some in their career trajectories. It's in the example of her own exceptional artwork, and the rigor, passion, and joy with which she made it.  And it’s palpable in the ethos of care we strive toward in our classes and among ourselves. I see it in my own teaching, always aspiring to Lenore’s ability to truly listen to and see others, to meet people where they are.  This is a deep loss for the department, and for many of us we have lost a dear friend. (Barbara Weissberger)
 

Lenore Thomas was an artist, friend, wife, sister, aunt, teacher, mentor, traveler, and learner, who adored puppies and delighted in trash television. The Studio Arts community at Pitt will remember her as a person who loved life and possessed the courage to live vulnerably.

Support the Lenore Thomas and Laura Lovett GSWS and Studio Arts Residency by giving to the Department of Studio Arts.

Read Lenore's faculty profile.

This article originally appeared on Department of Studio Arts Website.