How Cleo Thomas, Jr., Unknowingly Helped Inspire an Artbook Collection at SIUE

At some point more than ten years ago, one of my mentors, Jerry W. Ward, Jr., started including me on email chains with Cleo Thomas, Jr., an attorney and, as I later learned, a collector and connoisseur of African American art.

Thomas eventually began including me in his wide-ranging emails containing observations, reflections, recommendations, and commentary on a variety of topics, including African American art. Cleo and his wife, Carla Thomas, have collected and donated art for years.

A 2011 article about a talk that they gave at the University of Alabama noted that the Thomases had a collection of more than 300 pieces of art. 

I had been thinking about African American art for years, inspired in part by my conversations with William J. Harris. And then following along with the email threads shared by Cleo Thomas, I furthered my interests.

Thomas has been especially helpful in expanding my knowledge of African American art history. He regularly passes along information and links containing brief art histories of various artists. In November 2025, he sent out a message and link about Horace Pippin's Giving Thanks (1942), which prompted me to think more about table scenes in African American art. I had already been writing on that topic in relation to Ta-Nehisi Coates's Black Panther.

Because he attends art openings and sometimes reports on what he sees, Thomas has also been given me a clearer sense of the art world as this real, living ecosystem.   

 

My efforts to build a collection of African American art books to showcase in the Eugene B. Redmond Center on SIUE's campus over the last few years have been shaped by the ideas and ongoing exchanges I've had with thinkers like William J. Harris and Cleo Thomas.

Related:

• How William J. Harris Unknowingly Helped Inspire an Artbook Collection at SIUE

• Peter J. Gomes and Others Introducing Frederick Douglass