Thomas Chimes R.I.P.

I am sad to report that my dear friend Thomas Chimes is dead. He died one day after his 88th birthday. The quintessential Greek, he reportedly passed away reading Homer to his family.
I was privileged for the invitations to his studio where Tom demonstrated his painting technique to me. During my last couple of visits to Tom in 2008 he showed my a series based on the boat used to transport the dead to the Underworld over the River Styx (Greek: Στύξ also meaning hate, detest).


These demonstrations were inevitably interrupted by Tom walking over to a pile of paperbacks to illustrate literary citations relating to the subject matter in the paintings. Tom would leaf through a book to find the relevant passage with amazing accuracy. If the pages were marked in any way it was not obvious to me, but if he was a bit of a card shark in this respect I would not be surprised.
Tom was a remarkable and brilliant individual. extremely underrated and misunderstood by the art system, despite the few bones occasionally thrown him.
A great deal of my serious education was garnered in the streets of Philadelphia during the 80's and 90's by running into Tom uptown. When he lived in the Rittenhouse Square area I would regularly see him en la strada, in the earlier days wearing a khaki suit with his trademark slouched hat, a plaid shirt and a tie. My daughter and a succession of friends came to expect that if we ran into Mr. Chimes that our schedules were put on hold as he alternately held court on metaphysics and charmed anyone with me. It was not unusual for these sessions to last an hour.
Thomas Chimes was that rare individual that gave one a sense of well-being just spending time with him. I always walked away from my conversations with Tom with a smile on my face. A man of his stature will be sorely missed and impossible to replace.