Tom Nakashima was born in Seattle in 1941. He received both an MA and MFA at the University of Notre Dame. In 1981 Nakashima moved to Washington, DC where his exhibitions brought him critical acclaim in The New Art Examiner, Art in America, Art Papers, Art Forum, The Washington Post, Washington Review of the Arts and The Washington Times. He is Professor Emeritus at Catholic University of America. In 1990 his work was honored with a 10 year retrospective at the Washington Project for the Arts. The following year he received his first of three solo exhibitions at Bernice Steinbaum Gallery in New York. Since then Nakashima's exhibitions have been extensive. His art has been exhibited internationally and is included in numerous permanent collections including Corcoran Gallery of Art, L'Hermitage and The Smithsonian's National Museum of American Art. In 1999 he began a series of mural scale collages that were exhibited at Anton Gallery in Washington, DC and reviewed for Art Forum by Howard Risatti. Nakashima is presently the William S. Morris Eminent Scholar in Art at Augusta State University, and was featured in the 2006 MOCA GA exhibition, Within State Lines.