Daniel Thomas AM is an art historian and art-museum curator, honoured in 1986 as a Member of the Order of Australia. He was once chief curator at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, then Senior Curator of Australian Art at the National Gallery of Australia and, from 1984 to 1990, Director of the Art Gallery of South Australia. He has also headed various professional associations for art history, art museums and cultural heritage. He was a member of the Visual Arts Board of the Australia Council, and a board member of the National Portrait Gallery.
He has curated many special exhibitions of Australian art. In 1978 he was commissioner for the Australian exhibit at the international Venice Biennale of contemporary art. Retired to Tasmania he still writes on Australian art. In 2019 the Art Gallery of New South Wales published a highly praised selection of his essays, Recent Past: Writing Australian Art.