Tom Antonishak – Wildlife and Nostalgia
My interest in fine art began when I noticed an advertisement for a national art contest. This contest was for the National Park Academy Arts for the Parks Competition. A rendering of an eagle soaring across Mount Rushmore made the exhibit. More than 3,000 entries from the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico entered the competition to make the top 100 for the exhibit. My painting was the first painting sold and was displayed at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington D.C.. The painting ended up at the Mount Rushmore National Memorial in South Dakota. In 1993 an oil painting entitled “Autumn Cardinals and Creepers” featuring the scarlet songbird in Ohio’s Cuyahoga Valley National Recreation Area won the Grand Prize and the Gold Medallion Award of Merit for the Arts for the Parks Competition. This painting is now part of the permanent collection of the National Park Foundation. Accomplishments include the 1992 winning image for the New York Duck Stamp. The 1993 Ducks Unlimited Guess Artist Print “Long Day Pause.” A painting “Goose Island” was selected for Birds in Art, which is a prestigious international wildlife art exhibit at the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum in Wausau, Wisconsin. This work was singled out from entries submitted by artist worldwide. Twice I’ve been selected to participate in the Wildlife Art Sale at Christie’s of London, England. These events maintains the highest standards of today’s best wildlife art from around the world. I have illustrated various books and magazines such as The Nature Conservancy, Smithsonian Institute and Field and Stream. Growing up in the mountains of Pennsylvania, becoming an Eagle Scout I’ve learned to appreciate nature. I served in the United States Navy during the Vietnam War and later worked in the Pentagon with the Defense Intelligence Agency. After the Navy, I returned home and married my now wife Carol. The two of us moved to Pittsburgh where I attended the Art Institute of Pittsburgh majoring in graphic design. There I won the Merrill-Milai Scholarship and worked as a courtroom sketch artist and free-lanced for various local television stations as a news artist. After graduating, I worked as an illustrator. In 1981 I opened my own commercial art studio. My interest in art stemmed from his interest in history, particularly with the American West. I began to travel to militia musters, pioneer villages and Indian pow wows to find authentic models for my paintings. I have sculpted numerous fountains of life size bronze figures and animals. “…my painting background has helped in the design of my sculptures… and I find as I paint I’m always thinking of what the subject looks like three dimensionally as well..” My painting and sculpturing styles are marked with an acute sense of detail and intensity.
-Tom Antonishak