Tom Gibson

Gibson, Tom

 Tom Gibson, painter, photographer (b at Edinburgh, Scot 11 Dec 1930). Since the mid-1960s, Tom Gibson has been known for his black and white photographic depictions of street scenes and other familiar sites. From these commonplace surroundings, he constructs images of subtle formal relations imbued with a sense of irony. In this respect, Gibson's silver gelatin prints adhere to the idea of the "social landscape" in photography, a term first coined by the photographer and writer Nathan Lyons to describe the post-World War II documentary style of such figures as Robert Frank and Garry Winogrand.

Originally a painter, during the 1950s Gibson was closely associated with such Toronto artists as Graham COUGHTRY, William RONALD and Michael SNOW. By the mid-1960s, he had abandoned painting in favour of photography. Gibson has exhibited his black and white photographs extensively across Canada and in the United States. His work is represented in numerous collections including those of the NATIONAL GALLERY OF CANADA, the Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography, the ART GALLERY OF ONTARIO and the International Museum of Photography at George Eastman House (Rochester, New York). Gibson has also been the recipient of several awards from the CANADA COUNCIL FOR THE ARTS. In 1993, he was the subject of a retrospective exhibition and catalogue, entitled Tom Gibson: False Evidence Appearing Real, at the Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography. In addition to his own work, Gibson has been influential as a teacher of photography. Since 1976 he has been a member of the faculty at CONCORDIA UNIVERSITY, Montréal.