Tom Lawson is an artist, writer, editor, and curator based in Los Angeles. He trained as an artist in New York and Glasgow, Scotland, and has been the dean of the school of art at California Institute of the Arts since 1991.
He has exhibited internationally, and surveys of his work have been mounted by the San Diego Museum of Contemporary Art; the Centre For Contemporary Arts, Glasgow; and the Battersea Arts Centre, London. He has curated and collaborated on exhibitions for more than 25 years. He acted as curatorial consultant at the Drawing Center in New York from 1979 to 1982 and coselector of the British Art Show in 1995.
Lawson's essays have appeared in ArtForum, Art in America, Flash Art, frieze and October, and he has contributed to a wealth of anthologies and exhibition catalogs for the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art and other important institutions. For 13 years starting in 1979 he published and edited REAL LIFE magazine with Susan Morgan. In 2002 he joined the editorial team of the international art journal Afterall.
Participated in the panel discussion Commentary or Creative Space? The Magazine as a Site for Art Production