Remembered for his commitment to students and encouragement to ‘read broadly and think connectively’

By Sara Patterson and Maria Carrasquilla

Thomas “Tom” Mapp, a transformative leader in arts education and administration at the University of Chicago, passed away on Nov. 11, 2024. He was 88.

Mapp worked at UChicago for 26 years, beginning in 1975. He served as the second director of Midway Studios, part of the Committee on Art and Design within the Department of Art History, which also oversaw the Master’s in Fine Arts program. Over his tenure, he helped reshape the program to focus on intellectual rigor and artistic innovation. By 1996, Mapp had overseen its evolution into the Committee on the Visual Arts, independent from Art History with its own faculty chair and budget, laying the groundwork for what is now the Department of Visual Arts.

Mapp often reflected on the importance of education, particularly for artists. “I think artists have to be very well educated—very broadly informed,” he said in a 1975 interview with the UChicago Maroon. This belief shaped both his teaching philosophy and his leadership approach, emphasizing the intellectual rigor he brought to the classroom and his administrative roles.

“I began working alongside Tom Mapp in 1994 while he was director of what was then, the Committee of Art and Design at the University of Chicago,” said Laura Letinsky, a professor in the Department of Visual Arts. “His commitment to the students and ongoing enthusiasm for their work was inspiring and instructional to me as a young professor, and I learned much from his experience, kindness, and humor. His generosity to faculty, staff and students was vital in building the strong foundation we stand on today.”

A versatile and thoughtful artist

Born in New York City and raised in Stony Brook, Long Island, Mapp graduated from Dartmouth College in 1958 with a degree in history. After participating in the Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC), he began graduate studies at the University of Colorado, Boulder, but later transitioned to Yale University where he earned an MFA in painting.

Studying under Alex Katz and alongside renowned peers such as Robert Berlind, Richard Serra and Brice Marden, Mapp honed his craft in an environment he described in an interview with the UChicago Maroon as “much more precise, very much more intellectual, and very much more demanding” than his earlier studies.

“Tom and I had been good friends for 64 years, ever since we met at Yale,” said longtime friend Anthony Phillips. “Tom was the reason I came to the Art Institute in 1969, and my entire life here is owing to that.”

Following his MFA, Mapp served as an officer in the U.S. Army Intelligence Corps, stationed in Orleans, France. While this experience temporarily pulled him away from artistic pursuits, his son, Sam Mapp, believes it prepared his father for the structured leadership roles he excelled in throughout his academic career.

As an artist, Mapp explored multiple mediums, including photography, painting, drawing, printmaking and performance. According to Sam, his father’s work often examined the anthropomorphic qualities of trees and engaged critically with the history of art, blending humor, irony and intellectual provocation.

One of Mapp’s works, Most Unstationary, from Screen Prints (1970) is part of the Smart Museum of Art’s permanent collection. The piece reflects the cultural concerns and experimental techniques of the 1960s and 1970s. “His work utilized collage, printmaking, image, and text to critique the cultural climate with humor and insight,” Letinsky noted.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A believer in the analytical process of the artist, Mapp commented in the UChicago Maroon on Aug. 8, 1975, “Anyone who is a good artist is constantly going through that process. Now that may be a process of mentation, and not an arc of verbalization, so that you may not see evidence. When some guy like Jackson Pollack is sitting over this giant canvas dripping paint, we don’t see any actual evidence that there is some sort of intellectual process going forward—but indeed, there is.”

Prior to working at UChicago, Mapp was chair of undergraduate studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where he also exhibited his work alongside prominent artists, including Ruth Duckworth. He valued the opportunity to nurture creativity in others, a commitment Sam said defined Mapp’s professional life: “My father cherished his role as an arts educator and took great pride in nurturing students and inspiring colleagues.”

During his retirement in Chesterton, Indiana, where he passed away, he dedicated himself to photography, capturing countless images of nature in the nearby Indiana Dunes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Teaching with rigorous inquiry and grace

Former students remember Mapp’s kind and encouraging nature. Martina Nehrling, MFA’01, who studied under Mapp in the late 1990s as part of the graduate art program (Committee on the Visual Arts), described him as “kind,” having a “quiet grace,” and continuously fostering an intellectually engaging and supportive environment. When considering graduate schools, Nehrling arranged to visit UChicago during a day of critiques and was struck by the “depth of conversations and rapport between the students and faculty.” She recalled that Mapp’s nodding smiles often “tempered the sometimes bombastic conflicts among faculty during critiques.” For students, his presence exuded “patience and wonder.” She added, “He was someone we trusted and wanted to be remembered by.”

Nehrling vividly recalled the warmth and thoughtfulness of her graduate acceptance letter, written by Mapp himself. “It was exceptionally warm and encouraging, speaking to specific pieces in my application portfolio,” she said. She also shared a particularly poignant moment when Mapp responded to her written defense of her use of color in her paintings. His simple yet supportive words—“They are abstract, decorative, and beautiful. You don’t have to justify them any further”—captured his ability to distill complex ideas into concise encouragement. “He was kind and wise and often utterly sacrosanct to us,” Nehrling said.

Beyond his professional achievements, Mapp was a devoted father and husband, remembered for his humor, intellect, and love of animals. “Dad was a maker,” Sam recalled. “He often told my sister and me to ‘read broadly and think connectively,’ a philosophy that shaped his approach to life and work."

Thomas Mapp is survived by his wife, Jane Cooperman, his children, Nora and Sam, and his granddaughters Lucienne and Carina.