Thomas McEvilley (/məkˈɛvəli/; July 13, 1939 – March 2, 2013) was an American art critic, poet, novelist, and scholar.
He is survived by his wife, the artist Joyce Burstein; two sons from a former marriage, Thomas and Monte; a sister, Ellen M. Griffin; and two grandchildren.
He published several books and hundreds of scholarly monographs, articles, catalog essays, and reviews on early Greek and Indian poetry, philosophy, and religion as well as on contemporary art and culture.
In its return from exile, painting assumed a new theoretical basis in postmodern cultural theory, together with a new kind of self-awareness and interest in its own limitations.
In the article "Heads it's Form, Tails it's not Content" McEvilley describes a theoretical framework for the formalist project presented by postwar critics such as Clement Greenberg, Michael Fried.
He shows how trade, imperialism and currents of migration allowed cultural philosophies to intermingle freely throughout India, Egypt, Greece and the ancient Near East.
Copenhagen, 2000 Thomas McEvilley wrote monographs on Yves Klein (1982), Pat Steir, Leon Golub (1993), Jannis Kounellis (1986), James Croak (1999), Dennis Oppenheim, Anselm Kiefer, Dove Bradshaw (2004), Bert Long (2016).