Arthur Thompson, "Kippy's House" 1967, Oil Pastel, 22.5x30.5 inches

Arthur Thompson, "Sorrento Harbor",1956, Gouache on Paper, 22.5x30.5 inches

THE CLOWN will present previously unseen work by one of Maine's great 20th Century Modernists, Arthur A. Thompson (1907-1988), for the September show in our gallery. Arthur Thompson was first educated in architecture at Harvard University and M.I.T. During a time when large building and school complexes were changing the face of Bangor, he worked as a designer for Eaton W. Tarbell Assoc., planning and supervising public buildings such as the Recreation Center and Bangor High School. Free hours were devoted to experimentation in the visual arts, working out of doors where the changing aspects of nature required the accuracy of a quick media. Thompson was influenced by John Marin, a fellow architect/artist, who captured the coast of Maine in watercolor. Arthur Thompson moved on to his mature full-blown colorist work in oil pastel in the sixties, creating scenes of his home in Sorento, Maine and the nearby shoreline of Schoodic Point and Mount Desert Island. Four exhibitions of his work arranged by the University of Maine in Orono have made his name synonomous with the expansion of crayon and pastel strokes into heroic size drawings. Although he often returned to favorite sites to draw, each piece captures the energy of that particular moment in time. His architecturally trained eye translated life into line and color with an awareness of geometry of planes and the 2 dimensional surface of the paper, taking a cue from the father of Modernism, Cézanne. Please join us to celebrate the work of a maverick artist in his time, Arthur A. Thompson, September 1st, 5-8 pm.

Arthur Thompson, "Abstract", 1943, Watercolor	Arthur Thompson, "Blueberry Field", 1968, Oil Pastel