Founder · Resident Artist
Tom
Christopher.
Born 1952 · Hollywood, California
“I can tell a good painter by his palette. It’s always beautiful, at times more interesting than the painting.”
— HERB RYMAN, Disney Legend · Art Center College of Design, 1977
Tom Christopher in the studio, Croton Falls
40+
Years Painting New York
225ft
Roseland Ballroom Mural
18+
Cities Exhibited Worldwide
2009
Founded Lift Trucks Art
Biography
Four decades painting New York.
Tom Christopher grew up in Hollywood in Walt Disney’s first house. It was the house Walt moved into when he came out West. Tom trained at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena under Ward Kimball, the animator who drew Jiminy Cricket, and the painter Lorser Feitelson. Eight hours of drawing a day. Classical. Rigorous. The kind of training nobody does anymore.
He got to New York in 1981. First night cost him $13 at the Seaman’s Church Institute down in Battery Park. He found work drawing portraits for the Wall Street Journal, sketching courtroom scenes for CBS News, and making posters for Elvis Costello and Bruce Springsteen. Six years in, Times Square got to him. The noise, the light, the scale of it. He picked up a brush and started painting the city. He has not stopped since.
“The City exploded in a blaze of expressionistic colors. At once I realized my mission — try and capture the narrative, the beauty, and the magnetic pull of the epicenter of this modern urban city.”
TOM CHRISTOPHER
His work has shown in Paris, Tokyo, Frankfurt, Berlin, Brussels and Hong Kong. He painted the back wall of the Roseland Ballroom at 225 feet wide. In 2014 he and Oscar “Andrew” Hammerstein III took over a window of the Brill Building in Times Square and painted live in a pop-up studio for three months. The AP photographed it, the papers covered it, tourists stopped and watched the work happen. Two years later he led a mural project at Bahia Plaza in San Juan, Puerto Rico: more than 4,000 square feet commissioned by CPG Real Estate, built alongside students from the Escuela de Artes Plásticas y Diseño. Sweepers, architects, mothers, guitar players. Working people. The work drew from Thomas Hart Benton and the WPA tradition and it looked like it belonged there. When hurricane and COVID shut the venue, the largest panel traveled to Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport, where it still hangs today. Collections across North America and Europe hold his paintings. Galleries in Tokyo and Osaka have sold his work for years.
And in 2009, he did something most artists never get around to: he stopped waiting for the right gallery to show up, and opened one himself. In a 1922 building on Route 22 in Croton Falls, New York, he founded Lift Trucks Art — a working studio, a showroom, and a roster of artists he believed in. The studio is still active. Still open by appointment.
“In 2015, Pop artist Don Nice visited the studio and encountered a Christopher painting that was missing its center element. Nice picked up a pair of scissors, cut a piece of canvas floor tarp, and glued it dead center. That’s how it works here.”
ART WORLD CONFIDENTIAL, FEBRUARY 2015.
Featured Work
Untitled (Motorcyclist)
Year: 2024
Medium: Mixed media — acrylic, photographic collage, spray on canvas
Dimensions: 48 × 60 in
Status: Available
Studio provenance. Has not been exhibited. Available for private acquisition directly through Lift Trucks Art.
A Working Life
Seventy years, compressed.
A painter’s life told through the rooms he worked in: a bungalow in Hollywood, a classroom in Pasadena, a flophouse in Battery Park, a ballroom in Times Square, a window on Broadway, an airport terminal in San Juan — and finally, his own 1922 building in Croton Falls.
1952
Hollywood, CA
Born and raised in Walt Disney’s first house in Hollywood, the one Disney moved into when he came West.
1970s
Pasadena, CA
Studies at Art Center College of Design under Ward Kimball and Lorser Feitelson. Eight hours of drawing a day.
1981
Arrival, NYC
First night in New York, $13 at the Seaman’s Church Institute in Battery Park. Takes editorial work at the WSJ and CBS News.
1987
Times Square
Six years in. The scale of the city finally gets to him. He picks up a brush and starts painting Times Square.
1990s
Paris · Tokyo · Osaka
Solo shows across Europe and Japan. Galleries in Tokyo and Osaka sell his work for years. Five solo shows in Paris alone.
2000s
Roseland Ballroom
Paints the back wall of the Roseland Ballroom at 225 feet wide — the largest single canvas of his career to that point.
2009
Croton Falls, NY
Founds Lift Trucks Art in a 1922 building on Route 22. Studio, showroom, and a roster of artists he believed in.
2014
Brill Building
Takes a Times Square window for three months with Oscar Hammerstein III. Paints live. AP photographs it. Tourists watch.
2016
San Juan, PR
Leads a 4,000-square-foot mural at Bahia Plaza, built with students from the Escuela de Artes Plásticas y Diseño.
2020
SJU Airport
When the Bahia Plaza venue closes, the largest mural panel is moved to Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport, where it still hangs.
2024
Mixed Media Turn
Begins a sustained mixed-media series — acrylic, photographic collage, and spray on canvas. Untitled (Motorcyclist) leads.
2026
Still Working
Studio at Lift Trucks remains open by appointment. New paintings every month. Forty years in and not close to done.
The New Yorker
“Monet had his water lilies and Tom Christopher has Times Square.”
— David Owens, The New Yorker
Butler Institute of American Art
“Tom Christopher has become to American painting what Count Basie or Duke Ellington became to American popular music.”
— Dr. Louis Zona, Director
The New York Times
“Tom Christopher paints… impressive representations of the amalgamation of the commerce, the construction and the humanity of New York City.”
— D. Dominick Lombardi, Arts & Entertainment, July 30, 2000
Stories from the Studio
The things that don’t fit on a wall label.
Four decades of working in New York produces a certain kind of story — the kind that gets told at the studio when someone asks about a painting and ends up staying three hours. A few of them, for the record.
№ 01
The $13 first night.
He came east in 1981 with classical training from Art Center and not much else. His first night in New York cost him thirteen dollars at the Seaman’s Church Institute down in Battery Park — a flophouse for merchant sailors with peeling walls and a community bathroom.
Within a year he was drawing portraits for the Wall Street Journal and sketching courtroom scenes for CBS News. Six years after that, he stopped doing anything but paint the city.
1981 · Battery Park
№ 02
Don Nice and a pair of scissors.
In 2015 the Pop painter Don Nice came to visit the Lift Trucks studio. Christopher was working on a painting that was missing its center element — he knew it was missing, he just hadn’t solved it.
Nice walked up to the canvas, picked up a pair of scissors, cut a piece off the canvas floor tarp that was catching the drips, and glued it dead in the middle of the painting. Problem solved. The work went on to sell. That’s how it works here, Tom likes to say.
2015 · Croton Falls Studio
№ 03
Three months in a Broadway window.
In the summer of 2014 Christopher and Oscar Andrew Hammerstein III took over a ground-floor window at the Brill Building — the legendary Broadway songwriter’s building, one block off Times Square — and turned it into a working pop-up studio. Six hours a day, six days a week, for three months.
They painted live. Tourists stopped. The AP’s Kathy Willens came by with a camera. The image ran in papers around the country: two painters in a window, the neon behind them, Times Square happening to everyone on the other side of the glass.
2014 · The Brill Building
№ 04
4,000 square feet in San Juan.
In 2016, CPG Real Estate commissioned Christopher to lead a mural project at Bahia Plaza in San Juan, Puerto Rico. More than 4,000 square feet, built alongside students from the Escuela de Artes Plásticas y Diseño. The subjects were working people — sweepers, architects, mothers, guitar players — in the WPA and Thomas Hart Benton tradition.
When hurricane and COVID shut Bahia Plaza, the largest panel didn’t go into storage. It got moved to Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport, where it still greets every passenger walking through the concourse.
2016 · Bahia Plaza, San Juan
Why Collectors Work With Us
Collecting differently. Collecting better.
No gallery. No markup. No intermediary. Acquiring a Tom Christopher painting through Lift Trucks means working directly with the artist in the same room where the work was made.
— i —
Meet the artist. Know the work.
Every serious collector who comes through Croton Falls meets Tom personally. You hear where a painting started, what it was before it became what it is, and why he decided it was finished. That information stays with the piece for the rest of its life.
— ii —
Studio-direct pricing.
Lift Trucks is a studio and showroom, not a commercial gallery in the usual sense. There are no dealer splits and no consignment markups between the painter and you. The price you hear is the price the painter set.
— iii —
Internationally recognized work.
Christopher’s paintings have shown in Paris, Tokyo, Frankfurt, Berlin, Brussels and Hong Kong. They hang in collections across North America and Europe, and in the arrival concourse of an international airport. The work you see in Croton Falls is the same work those rooms got.
Works
From the studio.
A selection from the current working period. Every painting below is available to view in person at the Croton Falls showroom by appointment.
Currently in the Studio
Available for private acquisition.
These works are available directly from the studio — no gallery, no markup, no intermediary. Each painting can be viewed in person at the Croton Falls showroom before any decision is made.
No prices listed online.
Inquiries are handled personally by Tom.
Works available to view at the showroo.
Contact the studio →
2025
The Island Light Across Broadway
Oil on canvas · 36 × 36 in.
New work — studio provenance
2024
Energetic Night
Oil on canvas · 54 × 72 in.
Large-format — studio provenance
2025
Office Girl, The Day’s End
Oil on canvas · 30 × 30 in.
Shown at Lift Trucks, 2025
Acquiring directly from the studio means working with Tom personally — understanding the work, where it came from, and where it will go. These are not transactions. All works are available to view in person at the Croton Falls showroom by appointment.
Studio Visits & Work Inquiries
The paintings are just part of it.
A Tom Christopher painting comes with a story you don’t get from a gallery label — the city that made it, the painter who made it, and the 1922 room in Croton Falls where it still hangs until the right person walks in.
Visits are by appointment. Bring the afternoon.
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