About Tom

Born to architect parents in Highgate, my formal education began with Mr Murphy, school handyman, who started teaching me at about 10, how to sharpen tools, how to use Scotch glue, got me started on my first set of shelves (which are still used!) and validated this path in life for me.  At 13 I started carving.

At 15 my first commission was to carve a keystone panel for Dell and Tony Casdagli

After school, I went to Kingsway College and studied drawing, painting, calligraphy, print-making, with Ian Mortimer and ceramics, jewellery, enamelling, wood turning and carving which provided me a fabulous portfolio which got me in to the Foundation Course at St. Martin’s. where I learnt all types of welding.  I declined going on to a Degree because only painting, sculpture and fashion were available and my outlook is far more eclectic, not wanting to be tied to limited media.

I then explored jewellery and painting professionally and put on a successful exhibition of my painting at the International Arts Centre in Elephant & Castle.  I started to identify that I particularly enjoyed drawing and painting still-life, and soon realised that it would be far more interesting to create those objects in three dimensions.

I was keen to find a course where I could develop all my skills equally to high levels of excellence to control the medium in order to say something real and found West Dean’s Furniture Restoration one-year full-time course.

After achieving my Diploma, I served my cabinet-making apprenticeship under Stanley Block and David Horden at Spink Restoration Workshop and ran it for my last 5 years there with Peter Holmes who moved it on to Artlington Conservation which has become a centre of world excellence.  This training included working in any material found in 18th century furniture including metals, leather, stone, glass, silks and other fabrics as well as wood.

The art of restoration is that your work is invisible.  However, I gained credits from the following during my time at Spink:

1986 June : World of Interiors magazine.  Past Masters by Ros Byam Shaw.

1987 September : Pelham Galleries.  An Important Early Neo-Classical Bookcase at Burlington House Fair by Alan Rubin

1988 January : Soane Museum.  Soane’s Picture Room Restored by Peter Thornton, Curator Soane Museum

1990 June : Soane Museum. The New Drawing Carpet by Peter Thornton, Curator Soane Museum

Having had the privilege of deconstructing and reconstructing the finest works in wood, I continue to be staggered by the achievements of 18th century British cabinet making which I consider to be equally exciting as 18th century British painting and sculpture.  

Although I loved restoration and worked on the world’s finest pieces at Spink, I was keen to start making my own work full-time, returning to Spink’s and its new incarnation Arlington Conservation occasionally for specific work. 

Some of the places I have exhibited my work at: 

Celebration of Excellence at Bonham’s

Woodworking Show at Alexandra Palace

Grosvenor House Fair: Pelham Galleries and Harris-Lindsay

Art Workers Guild Open House Days

Lennox Cato Galleries, Edenbridge

New Galleries welcome – contact me via my Contact Tom page!