Background
Lenore Thomas was born 1 November 1909 in Chicago, Illinois, the daughter of Andrew S. Thomas and Lucy Haagsma, and died at her home in Blue Hill, Maine, on 16 January 1988.
Lenore Thomas was born 1 November 1909 in Chicago, Illinois, the daughter of Andrew S. Thomas and Lucy Haagsma, and died at her home in Blue Hill, Maine, on 16 January 1988.
Although she studied at the Chicago Art Institute, as a sculptor she was largely self-taught.
Much of her early work involved public art created under various New Deal programs, including terra cotta murals for several post offices. Along with other Public Works Administration artists Hugh Collins, Carmelo Arutu, and Joseph Goethe, she created playground sculpture for Langston Terrace, the first federally funded housing project in Washington, District of Columbia. in Surry, which later became the Morgan Bay zendo. In 1987, the University of Maine honored her with the Maryann Hartman Award, which recognizes distinguished women of Maine.
Shortly after her death in 1988, the Lenore Thomas Straus Scholarship was established in her name at the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, where Straus had taught as an artist-in-residence in 1984 and 1986 and plunged into the medium of handmade paper.
She was an active member of the Morgan Bay zendo, and several of her sculptures remain on its grounds.