Tommy — a/k/a Tebo — we still keep you in our thoughts and hope you’re spending your days drawing and painting all those visions of heaven.

I met Tommy when we were very young. We both went to Malvern Elementary School in Shaker Heights and to Euclid Avenue Temple and also Tall Timbers Camp in Casco Village, Maine where we bunked together.  We lived quite close to each other and saw each other almost every day. Our friendship continued through junior high and high school, but I went to a different college and Tommy moved to New York where he delved into his passion ... creating art. We lost touch with each other until he moved back to Cleveland when we renewed our friendship. Tommy was totally unique ... he had strong opinions on everything and wasn't shy about expressing them. He loved sports ... particularly baseball and he had an encyclopedic knowledge of players and teams dating back to the very early days of the sport. I miss you Tommy and hope you're painting and creating great art in heaven. Rest in Peace dear friend. Love, Bart

I'm very sorry to learn that Tom is gone. He and I were friends in NYC in the early 1970s. He told me about the history of Gypsy/Roma wanderings and music, and introduced me to a restaurant where the customers often did Flamenco dancing when the paid dancers took their breaks. 

After I moved to Maryland, we stayed in touch, mostly by letters, and when he visited here in '76 or so, we had a good time at the East Wing of the National Gallery of Art in DC. 

In recent years he didn't write much about himself, but sent photos of artworks he'd made, and sometimes photos of himself in baseball situations. He also sent me his detailed ratings of many films, and added that he viewed some frequently, for enjoyment and to keep his memories fresh. He also made drawings in the style of documents made during the Holocaust. 

My condolences to all who had frequent contacts with him.


I called him Monsieur Le Docteur and were colleagues over 3o years. Tommie was a devoted art scholar, teacher and qualified critic of arts movements. He painted, did mixed-media, wrote extensively on individual contemporary artist and gained insight of the New York art scene during his many years there. His favorite was abstract artist Robert Motherwell. His own art was bombastic, colorful and  politically controversial, but very disciplined. Tom also introduced all of us to his Collages of the Greats, a series of pictorial monographs of past and currant baseball stars, a comprehensive  treatise. Tom also had a great friendship with Dennis Eberhard, a Cleveland classical music composer and orchestrator. Tommie was gifted in his work, had a  great wit and personal appeal.His legacy will continue to be felt by us and his many students. FR

I am so sad to learn of your death.  We share so many years and so many memories.  You were a dear and devoted friend.  Rest In Peace; I will not forget you.

Later on, at our Pearson house (Moreland Hills).

Tom with one of his constructions at his one-man Ursuline College's Wasmer Gallery exhibit (with his calligraphic tapestries on the back wall)!

In a jaunt to Manhattan to view SoHo art galleries when Tom was living in Blairstown, NJ  (instructor at Hackettown's Centenary University).

Tommy - so sorry we lost touch with each other over the years. You were a good friend and a talented artist.  As twenty- something’s, we had so much to talk about. And then I moved away and the distances made it hard to keep connected, not only with you, but with so many childhood friends. Nonetheless, you were appreciated with much affection and you are missed. 
Polly Dancyger Sherard

Tom and I became close friends when he returned to Cleveland from NYC in 1978.   Began when he and I were both employed in two separate Architecture offices in Commerce Park (Beachwood).  
  
We became closer when my wife Diana and I would get together with his long-term girlfriend Lois Weisberg.  Later on he'd come over for years to our Moreland Hills home unannounced, staying for dinner and leaving after hours of schmoozing (lots about art).  He worked for me for a short while in my Chagrin Falls architecture office, adding a lot of talent.  
  
After his getting divorced to his wife Iris and moving to Blairstown, NJ (teaching at Centenary University, Blairstown), Di and I visited him there.  We drove into Manhattan, wandering through SoHo art galleries and having dinner at his favorite Spanish restaurant.
  
I was overwhelmed with his short-lived calligraphic and construction art period (homage to Jews) that was presented in a one-man show at Ursuline College's Wasmer gallery.
  
GOOD, ANCIENT BUDDIES!!

Tommy, I know that wherever you're going, you'll continue to make great art which will hang forever in the cosmos. Rest in peace my friend.

OBITUARY

Thomas Salomon

April 27, 1943 – November 8, 2022

Berkowitz-Kumin-Bookatz Memorial Chapel

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