Thomas (Tom) Teague

Tom was born in Goldsboro, NC to Lou Wilkins Norwood Teague and Samuel Farris Teague. He was the youngest of four brothers, Norwood, Samuel and William Teague. Norwood being the oldest and Tom the youngest surviving of more than twenty cousins.

He grew up in Raleigh where he attended Fred Olds Elementary School with his lifelong friends Joe Moody, since second grade, and Kenneth Oakley. The friends then moved to Broughton High School where Joe and Tom were on the champion tennis team. Tom played on both the 1952 and 1953 Broughton state championship basketball teams. Joe went on to VMI. Kenneth and Tom then were roommates at UNC where Kenneth graduated from dental school and where Tom was encouraged to go to art school. After a stint in the US Army deployed to Germany, he returned to attend Richmond Professional Institute, now Virginia Commonwealth University, where he received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree.

So began a thirty-year career in graphic design and illustration in New York and Washington, DC. After residing in Vienna Virginia for more than 30 years, twenty years ago Tom and his wife, Turid, moved to Raleigh. He continued his painting life here in a newly built studio attached to their house. He had been a long-time member of the Art League at the Torpedo Factory in Alexandria, Virginia where he was regularly juried into shows as an award winner there as well as shows in many other venues in the Washington and Maryland area. In his years there, he had three one man shows. Since 1996, his paintings have been juried into more than 125 competitions. During this time, he used his self-taught graphic and computer graphic skills in creating illustrations for the publications of many agencies and corporations also for his very own website design where his art can still be found online at: thomasteague.wordpress.com

Here in North Carolina, he has had one-man shows and awards in Raleigh, Cary, Chapel Hill, and Atlantic Beach and finally at Magnolia Glen where he and his wife of 57 years found a comfortable home.

Tom always challenged himself, exploring all aspects of the two-dimensional surface, ranging from realistic landscapes and still life to abstract concepts. His recent work became even more non-objective and brightly playful, challenging the viewer with unexpected colors. That was a new direction for him.

Tom drew on a lifetime of looking at nature, looking at art and making his own art. Drawing was always the most fun and the most exciting part of picture making for him. The beginning, when so many possibilities exist, watching how everything unfolds, seeing shapes morph and colors interact - the basic mechanics of making a painting, while always trying to remain open to as much as possible, so that each new day of painting would be a new day of painting for him.

Tom is survived by his wife, Turid Huf Teague. His nieces and nephews, William M. Teague Jr. (Beth), LuAnne Summers (Tom), Norwood T. Teague, George M. Teague (Nancy), Mary Hart Teague, Thomas N. Teague (Cathy), Geraldine T. Cole (Vince); brother-in-law, Thomas P. Huf; former sister-in-law, Eleanor M. Hight; nephew, Nicholas Hight-Huf and niece, Maja Hight-Huf.

A celebration of Tom's life will be held on Sunday, October 13, 2024, from 3:00 pm - 5:30 pm in the Craft & Pub Room at Magnolia Glen Senior Community, 5301 Creedmoor Rd. Raleigh, NC 27612.

Service arrangements provided by Brown-Wynne Funeral Home & Crematory, 300 Saint Mary's St., Raleigh, NC.