Brother Thomas Bezanson was an internationally renowned ceramic artist, a master of complex glazes and purity of form. Born Charles Bezanson in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada in 1929, Brother Thomas graduated from the Nova Scotia College of Design in 1950 and received a degree in commerce from St. Mary’s University, Halifax. It was around this time that he began his work in ceramic art.
In 1959, Thomas became a monk of Weston Priory, Vermont, a community of Benedictine men. He said that Weston was a gift to him and his art in that he learned from his brother monks. He continued both his art and formal education while in Weston and received a degree in philosophy and the University Gold Medal from Ottawa University, Ontario in 1968.
Brother Thomas was invited to travel to Japan where he met five Japanese potters, designated “Living National Treasures” by the Japanese government. These artists deeply influenced his work and his thought. The National Endowment for the Arts awarded him a grant in 1984. The following year he became artist-in-residence at Mount Saint Benedict Monastery in Erie, Pennsylvania, where worked until his death in 2007.
Brother Thomas was the author of numerous articles, monographs, books, and lectures on art and its spiritual aspects. Over the past 40 years, Brother Thomas’s work has been exhibited in more than fifty solo exhibitions. His pots are held in numerous significant public collections including the Art Institute of Chicago, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in New York, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Internationally, museums collections in Japan, Canada, England, France, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Israel and the Vatican also include his works.
Claire de Lune glaze over a porcelain body. 12cm tall
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