(1945 - 2021) Born in Dayton, Oregon, in 1945, Thompson began making art in his early college days, when he first embarked on the “long, slow transition from farm boy to artist.” His resulting, storied career was informed by cultural and visual experiences in the various places he lived and worked, including Albuquerque, Baltimore, Houston, Austin, New York State, and his native Oregon.Thompson first arrived on the national art scene in 1975, when he was invited to show in the Whitney Biennial, an achievement he repeated in 1981. Over the subsequent five decades, Thompson exhibited his work consistently and broadly, appearing in dozens of solo and group shows in New York, Los Angeles, Fort Worth, Houston, Austin, Albuquerque, Denver, New Orleans, Philadelphia, Portland (Oregon), and Santa Fe, to name a few. Internationally, he exhibited in Australia, Scotland, Singapore, South Africa, and the Netherlands.Thompson’s work can be found in many public and private collections, including those of the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth; the San Antonio Museum of Art; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; the Museum of South Texas in Corpus Christi; the Albuquerque Museum of Art; and the Portland Art Museum in Oregon. Corporations housing his work include the Standard Oil Corporation in Chicago, the Sprint Corporation in Kansas City, Apple Computer in Austin, and the Fidelity Corporation in Fort Worth.Highly regarded for his teaching efficacy, Thompson served for thirteen years as a professor of art at the University of Texas Austin, and then as professor of painting and dean of the School of Art & Design at Alfred University in New York from 1997 to 2009. He earned BFA and MA degrees from the University of New Mexico.