Thomas Stiltz is an American artist specializing in hyper realistic paintings of fine wine, liquor, aged cheese, fruit and flowers – objects that remind us of the most pleasurable moments we share with friends, family and the one we love.
Stiltz began his career as a photographer and a graphic designer in the early 1970s after earning a B.A. in Fine Art and an M.A. in Photography from the University of Delaware. He had photography shows in top New York photo galleries and The Museum of Contemporary Crafts, and collaborated with artists on large-scale art projects. But a Vermeer show he attended at the National Gallery in the early 1990s had a profound effect on his life and career. People lined up for blocks to see this large grouping of Vermeer's intimate, warmly lit still life paintings. Stiltz was fascinated by the suggestion that Vermeer used a camera obscura, the predecessor of the camera, in making his paintings. Soon after he began painting full time.
Photography has influenced the art of Stiltz in several ways. The viewpoint may be low, at table top level, or high looking down at the objects. The camera affords Stiltz the ability to freeze the scene at different heights that are different than the usual three quarters viewpoint for most still life painters. Also, a photographer is usually deciding what to crop out or leave in the image, where traditional still life artists start with a canvas shape and fill it up.
The strengths of Stiltz’ paintings are in the use of color, effective lighting, integration of foreground and background, and the composition of shapes. He looks for reflections of light bouncing of bottles and glasses, and for the contrast of shadows and highlights. After shooting a high resolution digital image, Stiltz uses Photoshop to enhance the image by manipulating light and color to create a colorful, rich and accurate image to paint from.
Stiltz organizes objects in a tightly composed arrangement that is unified by one dominant color and a distinctive pattern of light and shadow. A strong light source from a spotlight of an open window cuts across the arrangement of objects. There is an overriding warm connection to the colors of wines and liquors -- ambers, reds, orange, burgundy, golds -- that shows his passion for the subject matter. He aims to capture the same passion that his collectors and commission clients have for their favorite beverage.
His paintings are created using many layers or glazes of oil paint over several weeks to build up the paint surface. The artwork is then sprayed with layers of varnish, resulting in a painting that takes on the quality of a richly colored photograph. Stiltz believes art should provide stability and beauty to which we can anchor our constantly changing existence. His art is optimistic art that creates and invents wonderful visions that strive to express the pleasures of sight, taste, sound, smell and touch. His paintings and prints are exhibited in some 40 galleries around the United States, Canada and China, and Stiltz has had over 40 one-man shows featuring photography and paintings. He has been commissioned to create wine portraits for many Napa wineries.
His studio and home are located in Ruxton, Maryland, where he lives with his wife Sheri. He has two daughters, Jennifer and Julie, and four grandchildren.