District Schoolhouse by Thomas W. Nason (1889-1971) wood engraving, 10 x 6.75 inches, 20 x 16 inches framed, 1942.

Thomas W. Nason was born and raised in Billerica, Massachusetts in 1889. After finishing high school, he held a series of business-related jobs and it was only after a brief time spent in France during World War I that he began to teach himself the art of printmaking. He made extensive use of the resources of the Boston Public Library as well as the Museum of Fine Arts and the local print shops where he could study the work of his contemporaries.

During the 1920s, he focused almost exclusively on wood engravings. In 1923, he sold six prints to The Century Magazine for reproduction, and continued selling his prints through galleries and bookshops, such as Boston's Goodspeed's Book Shop and others. By the end of the 1920s, his work was winning national and international prizes and he was beginning to be featured in one-man shows around the United States.

Early in 1931, while living with his family in Reading, Massachusetts, he left his job to devote himself full-time to his printmaking, a brave move at a time when so many were suffering the impact of the Great Depression. Goodspeed's hosted two one-man shows, one in 1933 and one in 1935. In 1935, he also had shows at the Dallas Art Museum and the Carnegie Public Library in Fort Worth, Texas.

By 1935, his work was represented in the permanent collections of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the New York Public Library, the Baltimore and Cleveland Museums, the Library of Congress, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, and the FloGris Museum.