This article is part of Jozan Magazine’s ongoing series of personal portraits. Thomas Cole first arrived in Asia at the age of nineteen — and never truly left. What began as a search for an alternative reality developed over decades into a career uniting two lifelong passions: oriental textiles and the written word. From the bazaars of Kabul to a gallery in his home in Boudha outside Kathmandu, and later a gallery space in San Rafael, California, Cole has built a knowledge grounded in the eye rather than market value — and in fifty years of close engagement with the world of weavings.
A long-time contributing editor at HALI and publisher of a weekly newsletter spanning more than 600 essays, he is today one of the field’s widely read voices.
My history with rugs is a long one, though not as long as my history with writing. I first arrived in Asia less than a month after my nineteenth birthday, flying to London before continuing overland toward destinations that, at the time, seemed impossibly distant. In search of an “alternative reality,” I soon discovered that such realities were everywhere. My initial destination was the Kathmandu Valley, inspired by my first encounter with Tibetan art. A friend of my older brother had just returned from an extended journey and brought back a sixteenth-century Tibetan thangka. I had never seen anything like it. Determined to get as close to Tibet as possible in those years before it was open to tourists, I set my sights on Nepal.
The travels continued. The Asian bug had sunk its teeth firmly into my soul. Eventually, Kabul and its varied bazaars drew me in. Life there was easy, the climate familiar, and I had ample time to pursue not only rugs and textiles but also the company of like-minded individuals, including Western dealers and diplomats from around the world. I learned a great deal during those early years, though not through the lens of rarity, provenance, or market value. Relying largely on my eye, I slowly dipped my toe into the welcoming waters of a generally friendly and distinctly medieval marketplace culture.
After spending five years continuously in Asia, circulating between Afghanistan and India, I returned to the West with more rugs and kilims than any single person could ever use, so I began selling them and met Michael Craycraft at Adraskand. Buying more than half of what I had, he urged me to continue bringing him rugs, commenting on my eye. And only then did I begin to understand the underlying foundation of connoisseurship, and how the western marketplace worked. Returning to Asia, I bought what I could, returned once a year to visit Adraskand and sell what I could and even paid for advertising in the early newsprint editions of Oriental Rug Review through which I communicated further with other dealers, namely Ronnie Newman and Michael Andrews.
Returning to Asia with a typewriter, I began writing in earnest including long letters to my parents and friends back in the United States and eventually began work on a book about my travels in Asia. Later, settled in Kathmandu, I opened a gallery in my home in Boudha, just east of Kathmandu and I began dealing Tibetan rugs, meeting dealers from overseas arriving in search of collectible rugs and ancient textiles – the hunt for Ming dynasty silks and ancient rugs had begun with an influx of Tibetans migrating to India for the Dalai Lama’s Kalachakra puja in Bodhgaya, near the southern border of Nepal with Bihar in India. Previously unimaginably old and beautiful rugs and textiles arrived in the Kathmandu markets.
At the time, a call had been put out for papers to be presented at the 1990 ICOC in San Francisco. In the process, I gathered my thoughts for what would become my first contribution to HALI, published in January under the title Tibetan Rugs: A Tribal Tradition. Little did I realize how that first foray into rug scholarship could influence the market. Yet it did, and HALI, under the aegis of Alan Marcuson, soon brought me on as a full-time contributing editor.
After relocating to the West, and traveling to Asia as many as three times a year to acquire weavings for sale, I continued writing. And exhibiting rugs too, in a home gallery space in San Rafael. Once a year to coincide with the art shows in San Francisco, I curated focused exhibition of Central Asian textiles, Anatolian kilims, Turkmen textile art including pile weavings and silk embroidery, Persian tribal rugs and Baluch weavings. Existing galleries in the SF Bay Area had disappeared with the economic crash in 2008 and I presided over one of the few remaining gallery spaces in the Bay Area. Coupled with a website offering not only rugs and textiles for sale, it included articles I had written and others I had solicited from other sources.
When the pandemic arrived, Daniel Shaffer (then editor in chief with HALI) encouraged me to write for the many collectors and enthusiasts suddenly confined to their homes with more time on their hands than ever before. For sixteen months I sent out a weekly missive devoted to antique rugs and textile art. Popular though it was, I eventually needed a break. In October 2021, however, I resumed publication on a subscription basis at $60 per year.
Since then, I have written more than 600 individual essays and commentaries for a steadily growing readership. Those essays include auction previews and reviews, surveys of rugs/texiles pictured on line by dealers and collectors in addition to essays focused on singular examples that have either passed through my hands or been with others. Subscribers include major auction houses, members of the HALI editorial staff, experienced and novice collectors alike, and a number of prominent international dealers. Feedback is only occasional, but the response has been remarkably consistent: readers find the perspective fresh, interesting and educational, informed not only by decades spent handling textiles in Asia but also by a lifetime of looking closely, asking questions and listening to the answers over the past 50 years.
To subscribe – please contact thomascoleart@gmail for more information
Interview conducted by Ivan Soenderholm for Jozan Magazine. Text edited with permission from Thomas Cole.