Hank Willis Thomas, who earned his MFA in Photography and MA in Visual Criticism from California College of the Arts in 2003, has been named to Time magazine's 2026 TIME100 Art list, CCA announced on October 9, 2026. The list recognizes influential figures shaping the world of art in a year when the culture industry's power centers are being redrawn. Thomas works across photography, sculpture, video and public art, often reclaiming and reworking familiar images and symbols to question the stories embedded in contemporary culture. His public commissions include The Embrace (2023), the monument to Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King on Boston Common, and With These Hands: A Memorial to the Enslaved and Exploited (2025) at Davidson College in North Carolina. He also co-founded For Freedoms, an artist-led organization that uses art to drive civic engagement, discourse and direct action. Time described Thomas as embodying what civic engagement can look like for an artist expressing the complexity of American society, noting how his practice moves between love, belonging, collective memory and civic dialogue. Later this month, he is scheduled to deliver the Mandy and Cliff Einstein Visiting Artist Lecture at Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles on October 27, where he will discuss that wide-ranging practice and meet with students before the public talk. The TIME100 Art recognition adds a major mainstream accolade to a career that has moved fluidly between gallery practice, monumental public sculpture and civic organizing, confirming Thomas as one of the most visible artist voices in American public life.