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Adam Bruce Thomson (1885- 1976) was a painter of great integrity whose long, productive life tells the story of Scottish painting for the first three quarters of the 20th century. Writing for the journal Scottish Art and Letters in 1946, when JD Fergusson was Art Editor, T Elder Dickson describes the artist:
“Thomson is a painter of uncompromising sincerity. Few artists contemplate a higher purpose or spare themselves less in striving after its fulfilment. Fastidious in all that pertains to his craft, he belongs by temperament and mental equipment to the central stream of European painting initiated by Giotto and revitalised by Seurat and Cézanne. In other respects, especially in his love of colour and fine craftsmanship he is thoroughly Scottish.”
Our exhibition is selected from the studio and the accompanying catalogue gives the most in-depth view of Bruce Thomson to date. The exhibition showcases the full span of Bruce Thomson’s oeuvre and includes pre-war etchings, drawings from the allied front, and sumptuous watercolours in the ‘Edinburgh School’ tradition. That there are so many wonderful examples, unexhibited or not seen for the best part of a century, speaks of the artist’s modesty: he never sought advancement, but his work ethic, professionalism and long life has assured a significant artistic legacy. Twenty-four sketchbooks were lodged with the National Library of Scotland in 1981 and we hope further significant placements of his work with our Museums will result from this exhibition.
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 twentieth 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.
Thomson served in the Great War before returning to the College where he taught etching, composition and still life to the painting school and colour theory to the architecture students. His association with Edinburgh College of Art continued until his death as, although he retired from teaching in 1950, he continued as an examiner and a Trustee. His links with both the RSA, where he was Treasurer for seven years and the RSW, where he served as President for a further seven years from 1957 were very important to him. He was awarded an OBE in 1963. In 2024 the City Art Centre in Edinburgh is holding a major retrospective of his work, The Quiet Path, his first major exhibition in a public institution, to coincide The Gallery will honour Thomson with an exhibition in September 2024.
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