Jeffrey Thomas

(American | Onondaga, born 1956)

Native American artist Jeffrey Thomas (Onondaga) is a photographer, curator, and cultural theorist. His photographic practice explores historical images of Indigenous Peoples and places them in a new context. Thomas describes himself as an "Urban-Iroquois", and further explains that "My study of Indian-ness seeks to create an image bank of my urban-Iroquois experience, as well as re-contextualize historical images of First Nations people for a contemporary audience."

Born in Buffalo, New York, Jeffrey Thomas studied at the State University of New York (SUNY) at Buffalo. He lives in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. His photographs are in the collections of the National Gallery of Canada, the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian in Washington D.C., The British Museum in England, and many others.