Ruza Erceg

William Jamison opened Folkcraft Gallery in 1980 in Portland, OR, and in 1983 Jeffrey Thomas took a job there.

“Only 3 years old, the Folkcraft Gallery – really a shop at that time - was struggling. Together Jamison and Thomas began shifting the emphasis toward a gallery with regular thematic monthly shows and solo artist openings. At the time, the flame of the visual arts was fanned by only three galleries: Elizabeth Leach, an artist-run effort called Black Friction, and, of course, the ever-dominant Fountain Gallery.”
Randy Gragg, The Oregonian Nov. 23, 1990

It was an interesting partnership from the start, Jamison/Thomas formed by two partners who could not have been more different. Jeffrey Thomas was born into a family of mainstream contemporary art curators and collectors from New York City, and he was Jamison’s junior by 15 years. Thomas had interned at a prestigious New York gallery while in high school and knew the business. William Jamison, on the other hand, was raised in a small community in Ohio where he had taught painting and sculpture. Jamison had a degree from Kent State, and was more interested in artists who were not academically trained but whose work however deserved attention and exhibition. Needless to say, when both Jamison and Thomas finally agreed on an artist to represent, the work was always quite interesting!

Together, Jamison and Thomas began searching for self-directed or “outsider” artists, following up on clues, tracking word-of-mouth, listening and looking across the country. It took a lot of investigation. Sometimes it took months to work out the details with the artists, many of whom were reluctant to show their work to the public in the first place.

“The artists didn’t always trust us. Fortunately, William had a talent for artist relations and was persistent in his efforts to win them over with his charm and Cheshire cat-like smile.” Jeffrey Thomas

Jamison and Thomas were vocally passionate when discussing their artists, which raised both the profiles of their artists as well as awareness among collectors. In 1985 Thomas became a full partner and the Jamison/Thomas Gallery was born.


“I suppose it had always been in the back of my mind to open a gallery. I was interested in artists who were not academically trained. It was an evolutionary process, one that went much faster once Jeffrey got involved”.” William Jamison

And as fate would have it, just after the Jamison/Thomas Gallery had opened its doors in downtown Portland, Thomas met an influential art critic on one of his trips to New York, a publisher who was personally interested in this new “outsider art” that was starting to gain attention. In November 1985 the new gallery received an unexpected christening, a major boost in the “Dealer’s Eye” section of House & Garden magazine. Their phone started ringing off the hook.

As more and more inquiries were being fielded from collectors back east, Thomas saw the need for expansion beyond Portland. In August of 1986, with Jamison holding down the Portland homestead, Thomas moved to New York to open a tiny gallery near Bleeker Street in a West Village storefront he co-rented with a divorce lawyer.

By 1988, the Jamison/Thomas Gallery had moved into a large prime SoHo space carved out of a former brassiere factory on lower Broadway. It was at this time that the New York gallery’s focus shifted to contemporary New York artists and away from art with an “outsider” edge. In 1990 the art market bubble collapsed, and by 1992 Thomas closed the New York gallery and headed back to Portland.

In 1995, just 10 years after opening his gallery, William Jamison passed away, Jeffrey moved to the creative services industry as a producer and so the Jamison/Thomas Gallery closed for good. However, the two directors of the Jamison/Thomas Gallery in Portland, Jane Beebe and Charles Froelick, went on to open their respective galleries that have carried the torch into the light of the present day. Brad Rogers opened his own gallery, and then a series of businesses, in addition to curating exhibitions of artists he has championed over the years.

And so the Jamison/Thomas legacy has had a direct influence in the fine arts culture of Portland for over forty years!

This exhibition makes evident that from the very beginning Jamison/Thomas Gallery displayed art that was NOT similar to anything else being shown at the time. This criterion of authenticity was applied by the team of Jamison and Thomas in judging all the work that they handled. One of the major attractions of work from this period was its purity and humor, qualities Thomas thinks may have been sullied by the hard realities of an art world moving towards conceptual work and digital manipulation.

“We showed unique works of art that did not demand that you read a book or digest a plateful of critical theory in order to engage and understand them. While it seems like a long time ago, but I will never forget the good times working with Wiilliam Jamison. We had a good run and I cherish this opportunity to share the spirit of 1985 again”.
Jeffrey Thomas