Spring 2015 Issue Featuring a Cover Story on:
Thomas Mason Nielsen, Signature Member of the American Society of Marine Artists, Carrollton, Georgia
Born and raised on the banks of the Mississippi River in Iowa in 1948 Nielsen’s Danish ancestry was evident from the beginning for he loved to draw and build boats even as a kid. He had hoped to go to art school after high school but it was the era of the Vietnam War and the draft loomed over him. So in his senior year he enlisted in the U.S. Navy and served in Vietnam and the Pacific and found Navy life “magnificent.” Nielsen pursued life and art on the Mississippi upon discharge from the Navy as well as veteran affairs. The latter led to an eventual job with Veteran Affairs in Washington, D. C. where he continued portrait painting and a closer association with the subjects he painted, including Admiral Elmo Zumwalt and other Navy brass. Now retired, he has continued his portrait painting career and lives in Carrollton, a college town west of Atlanta. There he was able to visit the coast to be recharged by the sea and began his successful professional career as a marine artist.