SoHo, NYC

SoHo is home to the world’s greatest collection of cast-iron architecture. But more than that, SoHo is unique among New Thomas Wharton studied at The Art Student’s League of New York, The New York Studio School, The New York Academy of Art, The Grand Central Academy, Parsons, School of Visual Arts, and The National Academy of Design. His work has won many awards, including The West Virginia Governor’s Award, The Georgie Read Barton Award, The Katlin Seascape Award (twice), the Windsor Newton Award, and the Richard C. Pionk Memorial Prize for Painting. He has been included in the Art Renewal Center’s Annual Salon, and his portrait work has been awarded a Certificate of Excellence by The Portrait Society of America, where he now has been given Signature Status.

He has shown at the National Arts Club in New York, The Salmagundi Club, the Dacia Gallery, the West Virginia University Museum of Art, The West Virginia Cultural Center, Tamatack, Stifel Fine Arts, ETC., the Wausau Museum of Contemporary Art, the RJD Gallery, Ille Arts Gallery, the Christine Frechard Gallery, and the Nutting Gallery. His work is included in the Cultural Archives of the state of West Virginia, and his children’s book art is included in the permanent collection the the Mazza Museum of International Children’s Book Art. His paintings have been included many publications, including American Art Collector, Fine Art Connoisseur, International Artist, and Poets and Artists magazines, as well as the book, 21st Century Figurative Art: The Resurrection of Art. His work can be found in private and institutional collections throughout the United States.

In addition to his work as a fine artist, he has had a distinguished and successful career as a designer, illustrator, art director and creative director. His clients have included Cambridge University Press, Citibank, MasterCard, the New York Stock Exchange, Lifetime Television, Starwood Hotels, Clarins, Shiseido, Simon & Schuster, and New York University.

He is also an accomplished musician, and holds a Bachelor’s and Masters degree in piano from West Virginia University. York’s neighborhoods for its classical French and Italian architectural designs. It simply doesn’t look like anywhere else, not even the neighboring West Village or Lower East Side. 

For one thing, the colors are much more distinct in SoHo. They’re brighter. Perhaps that’s a reflection on the people living here. But for many of the cast-iron buiildings that give SoHo it’s unmistakable character, the reason for their bright coloring is actually pretty obvious: whenever you construct anything from wrought iron, it’s going to look like, well, wrought iron.

So the colors of SoHo as they’re known, or at least as they ought to be known, the colors that are just a street photographers dream come true (where else can you find so many amazing backdrops?), are actually the result of many, many coats of bright paints. And they light up a photo in ways even a flash cannot.

For me, it’s all about New York streets. They’ve been immortalized in who knows how many songs and poems, movies and books, but even though I’ve spent years documenting them with my photography, I don’t think I’m any closer to understanding them than I was when I started. They are their own kind of art, and for a photographer, all you need to do is setup the shot and take it. I have lived in New York for only five years, but I have been a working, professional photographers for fifteen years now.

Street Scenes

You never know what you’ll find on the streets. And if you happen to be a photographer working in New York, that’s doubly true. I’ve had the good fortune to shoot all over the world, and when I come back to New York, I’m always reminded of why I started my career here.

The New York street scene is, for better or for worse, the street scene. It’s the one that is the most iconoclastic, and because of the backdrop of New York, it’s the one that I think people from just about anywhere imagine when they think of the idea of a street scene—whatever a “street scene” happens to be.

I created this album to showcase some of my favorite street scenes that I’ve captured in New York. This is nothing that I’ve done on contract or in my studio, just real life moments captured by me with my Mark III when I had some time to kick it around the city. I hope you like what you see. I did.