Tom Phillips (1937-2022) was an English painter, printmaker, illustrator, sculptor, translator, composer, librettist and set designer. He studied English Literature and Anglo-Saxon at St. Catherine's College, Oxford, and was taught by Frank Auerbach while studying art at Camberwell School of Art from 1961 to 1963.

During his early career, Phillips taught art and art history at Ipswich, Bath and Wolverhampton art schools, teaching, among others, the musician Brian Eno. A notable portrait artist (several of his paintings hang in the National Portrait Gallery), Phillips' other works include tapestries for St. Catherine's College, sculpture for the Imperial War Museum, and art and memorials for churches, including both Westminster Cathedral and Westminster Abbey. His musical works include the experimental opera Irma (1970) and translating and designing Verdi's Otello for the English National Opera in 1998.

Phillips curated a 2004 National Portrait Gallery exhibition (We Are The People) of his collection of postcard portraits from the early 20th century, following his book on the subject, The Postcard Century (2000). He was lead curator for the Africa: The Art of a Continent exhibition at the Royal Academy in 1995, and also published a book on African goldweights.

A translator and book creator/publisher, Phillips' longest-running project is his transformed version of W H Mallock's 1892 novel A Human Document, which he has altered with drawing, painting and collage and published in various forms as A Humument (1966-), including as an iPad app in 2010. Phillips also illustrated, translated, and published a version of Dante's Inferno and worked on a televised version, A TV Dante, directed by Peter Greenaway.

He served as exhibitions committee chairman for the Royal Academy (1985-2007), and as a trustee at both the British Museum (1999-2006) and the National Portrait Gallery. In 2005-2006 he served as the Slade Professor of Fine Art at the University of Oxford and from 2005-2011 he was invited as an annual Director's Visitor to the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton.