Tom Lockhart was born and raised in the heart of the pristine San Luis Valley in Southern Colorado. A brief art lesson at age ten sparked some interest in painting but high school sports and other activities challenged him in other directions. While attending college in Emporia, Kansas an art professor approached him and encouraged him to take an art class. The seed was planted again and Tom changed his major to art. He received his Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree from Emporia State University in 1976. After graduating Tom returned to Monte Vista to help run the family furniture business. For ten years Tom spent the evening hours and spare time drawing and painting in the more traditional fashion, rather than the non-objective abstract approach he learned in college. He read many instructional books about various mediums and also studied many of the Great Masters. After 10 successful years in retail furniture and part time in the art business Tom decided to pursue art full time in 1986.
Tom learned to paint in watercolors, pastel and eventually oils. He soon realized his limitations and was advised to get his Masters Degree in Art. He could only go so far without the proper instruction; once again this was not the direction for him.
Tom began to explore the need to study with professional fine artists working in the same manner and style that interested him. Lockhart has studied with such notable artists as Ray Vinella, Ted Goershner, Lowell Ellsworth Smith, Irvine Shapiro, Skip Whitcomb and Wayne Wolfe.
With this information and further self study, Lockhart began to concentrate on painting en plein-aire (painting from life), which is the greatest teacher for a landscape painter. Tom continues to travel the southwestern canyons of Arizona and Utah and the northern villages of New Mexico as well as the Rocky Mountains and the coast of Maine.