Winter or the Flood

Thompson worked in a mode, through his deep interest in older European painting, that was largely antithetical to the prevailing styles of the day – pure abstraction and minimalism. A Black artist from Kentucky, he moved to New York, and later to Paris, Ibiza, and Rome, to become a “visual musician”, synthesizing different styles and forms. Indebted to Piero della Francesca, Raphael, and Poussin as well as the Fauves and German Expressionists, in his works he eliminates details, using broad swaths of color and patterns. He wrote, “I think painting should be…like theater, a presentation of something, some activity…Not only to expose the ability of the artist, but also for the viewer. To relate, like the paintings of the Middle Ages, and the Renaissance.”