William Thomson 1926-1988

William Thomson RBA, ARCA was born in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada in 1926. He was a British painter

Thomson attended McMaster University and Ontario College of Art, Toronto between 1945-1947 (studying under the Canadian artist John Alfsen RCA) where he received a gold medal in 1947.

He left Canada in 1948 on a scholarship to study at the Royal Academy Schools, London. He transferred to The Royal College of Art in 1949, graduating in 1952. In 1957 the artist Oskar Kokoschka described him as 'the best painter of his generation'.

Thomson travelled widely in Europe and held various teaching posts. Most notably at Central School of Art and Design (1973-1984), were he kept the (then) increasingly unfashionable life drawing classes alive.

Between 1955 and 1987 he had numerous solo exhibitions in the UK. He regularly showed at the Royal Academy between 1958 and the year of his death (1988), when all three of his submitted paintings were exhibited.

Examples of his works are held at the The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and several galleries in Canada, including the Art Gallery of Hamilton.

William Thomson died in London in 1988, aged 62.