I am sixty-five years old.

In 1963 when I was eighteen, just off the family farm and in college, a generous friend gave me a box of unused oil painting supplies. I began painting landscapes inspired by Oregon’s Willamette Valley. My interest in painting the American landscape continues right up to today 

By 1965 a work was exhibited in “Northwest Printmakers” at the Henry Gallery, University of Washington.

In 1967 Henri Gallery, Washington, DC exhibited my work and sold a painting to Sydney and Frances Lewis.

 In 1975, Marsha Tucker selected one work of mine for the Whitney Biennial of American Art.

 In 1980 Richard Marshall selected three works of mine for the 1981 Whitney Biennial of American Art.

 1n 1978 I received a NEA fellowship for painting. In 1981 I was in the Roswell Artist in Residence Program in New Mexico. In 1982 I was an artist-in-residence working at the Gippsland Institute near Melbourne as a participant in an Australian nationally supported residency program.

 Over the years I have exhibited in New York with Monique Knowlton Gallery and with Ed Lau’s Space Gallery in Los Angeles. I exhibited at the Edinburg Museum of Modern Art, Scotland; the Groningen Museum, the Netherlands, the National Portrait Gallery, Washington, DC; the University of Melbourne, Australia, and in galleries in Singapore and South Africa. My work has been exhibited in one person and group shows in numerous American art museums, university exhibition spaces, and contemporary galleries. Many of the museum professionals or art galleries that supported my work and through which I built my career are no longer active. William Campbell Contemporary Art in Ft. Worth Texas has represented me since 1986. My most recent show with this gallery, “New Landscapes: Horizons and Prairies” was this last October. To see a full range of my creative work since 2006 please go to richardthompsonart.com.

 For fourteen years I was a Professor of Painting at the University of Texas in Austin. And, from 1997 to 2008, I served as Dean and Professor of Painting at the School of Art and Design, NYS College of Ceramics at Alfred University. I retired from teaching in 2008.

Teaching focused my creative experience in that all quality works of art are formed by the practiced interaction of the heart, the hand, the eye and the mind. There are no shortcuts to creative achievement.

As with us all there have been good years and some not so good. I have been married, divorced, widowed and now I am happily married. My health remains good. I have a sustained studio practice interrupted only for opportunities to fly fish for trout.

 Over these forty plus years my work has evolved slowly and directly becoming a more open, clearer, individual vision. I paint what I see and what I think about what I see. Every day the world around me reveals new visual possibilities in the ever-changing combinations of natural forms and man’s presence.