Norman artist Tom Gentis, 55, died Friday after a six-month fight with cancer.
Along with his work in the engineering field as director of international sales with Cameron Compression Systems in Oklahoma City, Gentis was a prolific sports portraiture painter.
Gentis specialized in professional and amateur sport illustrations from his studio in Norman. Gentis' award-winning art hangs in sports venues, galleries, and private collections around the country.
A longtime volunteer with the Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame Museum-Guthrie, Gentis painted and donate the 26-by-38-inch official portraits of all of the Warren Spahn Award winners since the award's inception in 1999.
Gentis also painted and donated action poses of award winners Andy Pettitte and Dontrelle Willis to be displayed along with his depiction of Oklahomans Johnny Bench and "Bullet" Joe Rogan, who are in the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
"Tom Gentis was a quiet, unassuming talent who made a huge contribution to Oklahoma's sports legacy by chronicling the Warren Spahn Award winners and others," said Darl DeVault, OSHOFM-G publicist. "His work added an important dimension to our efforts to honor the late Warren Spahn as the winningest lefty ever and those players who won the award in its first decade. His contributions will be greatly missed."
Preceding Oklahoma's Centennial celebrations Gentis painted the Oklahoma Centennial Commission-approved 30-by-40-inch acrylic montage painting titled "Oklahoma's Athletes of the Century 1907-2007." It depicts 25 contributors to Oklahoma's athletic heritage.
Limited edition prints of the painting are available from Gentis' Web site: www.coldcoffeestudio.com.
Gentis also lent his artistic talent to the museum's 3-by-36-foot Oklahoma Centennial 1907-2007 Athletic Heritage Timeline Project. The timeline depicts Oklahoma sports figures and their accomplishments from each decade of the last 100 years.
Survivors include his wife Debra, of the home; children: Amber Bui and husband Tommy; son Adam and girlfriend Julie Hudson; daughter Andrea and friend Philip Reichelt; all of Norman; grandsons Noah and Hudson Bui; brother Robert and Patricia Gentis of Springfield, Ohio and nephews Scott and Matthew Gentis of Columbus, Ohio.
The OSHOFM-G has established a fund to help the Gentis family defray expenses incurred in the last six months. Donations to the Tom Gentis Fund can be sent to OSHOFM-G at P.O. Box 1342, Guthrie, OK 73044.
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Norman sports artist dies
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