At X Gallery we store artworks for private and institutional clients and aid in the temporary holding of pieces for major exhibits. In 2017-2018 we worked with the Governor’s Office for an exhibition of works by Richard Thompson, a significant contributor to the arts culture of the Pacific Northwest.

Recently we were pleased to hear that Thompson had two large scale paintings added to the permanent collection of the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Texas. In early December 2020 William Campbell Contemporary Art announced that Cloud Palettes and Big Head, both oil on canvas, would be acquired by the Museum.

Thompson’s work combines formal rigor and precise technical skill, with an animated landscape tinged with humor. Thompson’s work is reminiscent of the early American folk painting tradition defined by careful spatial composition and clearly defined and ordered forms throughout the canvas. Each area is attended to equally with nothing called out by surface treatments or varied brushwork. Often viewers of this style of painting are drawn in by its approachability and the calmness afforded by the presentation. With Thompson’s work, one is continually surprised by what happens after this initial introduction.

While his work is landscape oriented, the forms that he makes in this traditional genre take a surrealistic and surprising turn. The forms are actually rather destabilizing which makes for a repeated return to the image as if trying to understand what is really being seen. This in combination with the color palette, which is full of restraint, but punctuated by clearly contemporary colors, and the size of the pieces, which are generally quite large, the work tends to envelop, almost overwhelm the viewer. These techniques make for a lively engagement with and commentary on pastoralism—historically as well as now.

Thompson’s obvious affection for both the natural world and his audience seems deeply connected to both having grown up on a farm in Dayton, Oregon and his career as an educator. He discovered art while a forestry student at Oregon State University in the 1960’s and pursued both a studio and academic career for thirty years including as Professor of Art at the University of Texas in Austin and Dean of the School of Art and Design at Alfred University in New York. He returned to his family farm in Oregon in 2011 where he has continued to paint and show his work, most recently with a large piece, Home Pool, added to the Salem Convention Center’s permanent collection of public art.

Thompson has exhibited across the United States and overseas. His work has twice been included in Whitney Museum of American Art Biennials and was included in the 2014 and 2016 Oregon Biennials hosted by Disjecta in Portland, and recently shown in exhibitions in Texas and New Mexico. His works are in the collections of the Portland Art Museum, the Hallie Ford Museum and other public and private collections.