Henry Tomlinson was born in Baltimore, Maryland on September 18, 1875. He attended local public schools and Baltimore City College. He also took drawing courses at night, and in 1895 he received the Peabody Prize at the Maryland Institute of Art. When Tomlinson was 21 he moved to New York where he studied art for a year with the Art Students League and then took a pack trip out west where he worked on ranches, in gold mines, and in smelting plants. When he returned to New York he wed Maude Cooley, and they had one daughter. For several years Tomlinson earned his living acting small parts in Broadway plays. After silent movies appeared he played in early high collar tragedies and pie throwing comedies. His acting career ended when he became deaf. He was primarily a self-taught artist whose medium was oil and whose subjects were landscapes. In 1920 Tomlinson moved to Salisbury, Connecticut where he built a cottage for his family. Doctors later informed him that he had weakened his heart through the strain of the labor. He began working for the WPA Federal Arts Project in 1935 and completed 87 easel works and three murals. They were allocated to Fairfield State Hospital, Greenwood School in Winsted, Laurel Heights Sanatorium, Long Lane Farm, Fort Wright on Fisher’s Island, Salisbury High School, Norwalk High School, Danbury State Normal School, Connecticut School for Boys, McKinley School in Bridgeport, State Teachers College in New Haven, and the Winsted School Board. Tomlinson loved the desert Southwest and died while visiting New Mexico in 1949.

 Sources: WPA Artist’s Work Card; WPA Biography; New York Times, January 31, 1949; Obituary, Lakeville Journal, February 3, 1949; AskART; Who’s Who In American Art (1985), p. 626; Fielding’s Dictionary of American Painters (1986), p. 943.