A Dumfriesshire Farm, c.1906

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Bruce Thomson – or ‘Adam B’ as he was often called – was a painter of great integrity whose long, productive life tells the story of Scottish painting for the first three quarters the 20th century. Thomson was born in 1885 attending first the Trustees Academy and then the newly established Edinburgh College of Art where he received diplomas in both Drawing and Painting, and Architecture before scholarships took him abroad to Spain and then Paris. He was an accomplished etcher and lithographer and he also sought expertise in the difficult media of pastel and watercolour. By the 1920s, his technique was closest to S.J. Peploe, Cadell and other contemporaries favouring the technique of painting on a gesso ground with an oil-reduced vehicle so the subjects tended to be treated in flat areas of colour.