The Journey toward Unity: A Conversation with Prince Anthony Thomas

by Julia Carita, Arts Committee Member

Prince Anthony Thomas, "The Grind of Making Woke Art (Self Portrait)", 2025, Pencil on poster board, 11 X 14 1/16"

In conceptualizing his outlook on life, Prince Anthony Thomas visualizes himself as a bus driver. As he moves along with a destination, goal, or accomplishment in mind, he imagines his bus picking up the people who have impacted his life, both positively and negatively, and taking them on his journey. It is a lovely metaphor for the growth and self-exploration that we all do throughout our lives, as well as the influences and community spirit that shape us along the way. Thomas shared this metaphor with me at the beginning of our interview, and its message echoed through our conversation as we discussed Thomas’ upbringing, the development of his art style, and his upcoming exhibition, 19 Portraits: Honoring Black LGBTQ+ Philadelphians, which opens on June 5 at William Way.

“I’m very appreciative of my parents and family. They encouraged me to be who I am. The one thing in my upbringing that my parents taught me was the importance of overcoming stereotypes and stigma. That was one of my challenges, in realizing at an early age that I liked people of my sex,” Thomas shared as we chatted about his childhood. In addition to his sexuality, Thomas says that he was also aware of the stereotypes and stigmas that followed him as a young Black man, as well as challenges caused by what he describes as “an intolerance for fear and uncertainty” which would later be diagnosed as Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD).

Beginning when he was five years old, Thomas soothed his anxieties and strengthened his photographic memory by creating detailed drawings of the Greyhound buses he loved to see around Philadelphia, as well as cars and trucks that caught his eye. Art became a form of enjoyment and escape for Thomas, who wanted to capture the exhilaration of being a passenger on a highway bus during the 1960s and 70s. Though his friends and classmates recognized Thomas’ skill, art remained a casual hobby for him until after his graduation from Penn State, around the same time that Thomas began embracing his identity as a gay man.

“I knew from an early age that I was interested in males, but I chose in school and college to, sort of, suppress that. I had a Catholic education, and that environment really did not think highly of homosexuals…But there came a point in my life, I’d say my mid-twenties or late twenties. I realized I needed to be honest with myself regarding my feelings, and I was fortunate enough to have a support system in terms of my parents and some friends. As a person of color what stuck with me was the need to overcome stigma and stereotype. I always felt that was essential and key for anyone – whether a woman, or gay, or whatnot. Sometimes the way to get ahead is to know what the stereotypes are and defeat them.”

In his quest to both embrace his natural artistic talents and to defeat stereotypes, Thomas began taking inspiration from a number of prominent Black and queer artists, musicians, and entertainers. In the 1990s, he encountered a series of nude male drawings by Douglas Simonson that inspired Thomas to transform his own artistic practice. Thomas was especially moved by their formal qualities; Simonson’s detailed illustrations and cross-hatching technique inspired Thomas to embrace cross-hatching, shading, and three dimensionality in his own work. In addition to Simonson, Thomas cites Keith Haring's AIDS education activism, Jean-Michel Basquiat’s abstraction, Madonna’s rebelliousness, and the nuanced storytelling on the sitcom Good Times as major influences on his work.

Prince Anthony Thomas, “Portrait of Anita Cornwell”, 2023, Pencil on poster board, 14 x 11 1/16"

In 19 Portraits: Honoring Black LGBTQ+ Philadelphians, Thomas presents a series of beautifully-rendered pencil portraits honoring nineteen prominent writers, activists, artists, and pillars in our community. Each individual is depicted in Thomas’ signature cross-hatching style, capturing the power and joy emanating from their likenesses and their legacies. As we discussed the origins of the exhibition, Thomas stated: “I want to say thank you to Chris Bartlett, because Chris Bartlett gave me a direction with this [exhibition]. I had approached him as an artist and stated that I would like to make a difference in the community. We had talked about things, and we had talked about addressing people of color who are LGBTQ+ who had made it their livelihood to contribute to the community through the capacity of being mentors, organizers, activists. And when I read their histories, I just can’t help thinking how brave they’ve been in an environment that can, at times, be hostile.”

Among the Philadelphians honored in this exhibition are Bayard Rustin (1912-1987), a West Chester native and a key figure in the Civil Rights Movement; Anita Cornwell (1923-2023), the first Black female writer to identity as a lesbian in print; and Helen Dow, a community activist who devotes her time to helping LGBTQ+ children of color. While these portraits look back on the incredible individuals who have advanced artistic, political, and social change over the course of the 20th century, they also spark contemporary contemplation. Thomas revealed that he created these portraits while listening to MSNBC, CNN, and NPR, inspiring him to weave our past with our present. Like many of us, Thomas shares concern over the current political climate and the brewing culture wars that seek to further divide and distract us from larger issues. “It helped me to stay focused and interweave the lives of people that I’m drawing because some things have come forward in a lot of ways. Things have stayed the same, and there’s an effort to make things go backwards. I hope that things do not roll back to the point where we were in the 50s, or more,” Thomas explained. 

One example might be the portrait of Tyrone Smith (1942-2025), a gay Black elder from Philadelphia who Thomas was able to read about and speak with before he passed away. Tyrone Smith shared stories of a segregated Gayborhood during the 1970s, in which Black patrons visited bars north of Market Street, while white patrons frequented bars on Locust and Spruce Streets. During our conversation, Thomas warned against the discrimination, fetishization, and exclusion that still occurs in our contemporary bar scene and called for unity and community action as we face an uncertain political future.

Prince Anthony Thomas, “Portrait of Tyrone Smith”, 2024, Pencil on poster board, 14 x 11 1/16"

“I did bring up [my] OCD for a reason,” Thomas divulged toward the end of our interview, “I wanted to be a lesson for people. We’re in scary times right now, and there’s a lot of uncertainty whether it’s on an economic level, or regarding our quality of life as LGBTQ+ people. The core of the thing, of OCD, is to resort to behaviors to try and tackle that uncertainty. But it’s not successful, and repetitive behaviors continue and cause a dysfunction. I would like to suggest, for all of us, that to some degree we have to get a comfort level with uncertainty. 

“It’s like driving a car. When they first drive in a car, some people are scared of it. They realize it's a lethal object if it's not handled correctly. But a car is very useful for getting from point A to B. It improves our quality of life. But in order to master that automobile, we have to overcome the fear. As LGBTQ+ people, it’s a scary time right now, but we have to find ways to overcome the fear and not let the fear dominate and to stay focused.”

Through 19 Portraits, Thomas suggests that the destination sign for all of our metaphorical buses should be “Unity.” Just as this exhibition brings together the legacies of many different people with similar life goals and depicts them in a unified style, Thomas would like to inspire our community to lead with unity, compassion, and understanding as we connect with one another and serve as passengers on each other’s buses. 

Prince Anthony Thomas’ 19 Portraits will be on view from June 5 to 30 at William Way. These portraits will be on view together for the first time, and will be donated by the artist to the Permanent Art Collection of the John J. Wilcox, Jr. Archives after the exhibition. 

Join us for an Opening Reception on Thursday, June 5th, 6-8 PM. Also on view is our ongoing exhibition “Refigured, Unframed: An Exhibition with Philly Queer Life Drawing,” until June 30th, 2025. Please note the Center will be closed for Juneteenth on Thursday, June 19th.

For more information, visit the exhibition site at www.waygay.org/19-portraits