Adam Bruce Thomson OBE, RSA, PRSW (22 February 1885 – 4 December 1976) or ‘Adam B’ as he was often called at

Edinburgh College of Art Edinburgh College of Art (ECA) is one of eleven schools in the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Edinburgh. Tracing its history back to 1760, it provides higher education in art and design, architecture, histor ...

, was a painter perhaps best known for his oil and water colour landscape paintings, particularly of the Highlands and Edinburgh. He is regarded as one of

the Edinburgh School The Edinburgh School refers to a group of 20th century artists connected with Edinburgh. They share a connection through Edinburgh College of Art, where most studied and worked together during or soon after the First World War. As friends and coll ...

of artists.

Biography

Thomson was born in

Edinburgh Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian ...

and studied at the Royal Institution School of Art and the RSA Life School. He went on to study at the

between 1908 and 1909, where he gained technical expertise in

etching Etching is traditionally the process of using strong acid or mordant to cut into the unprotected parts of a metal surface to create a design in intaglio (incised) in the metal. In modern manufacturing, other chemicals may be used on other types ...

drypoint Drypoint is a printmaking technique of the intaglio family, in which an image is incised into a plate (or "matrix") with a hard-pointed "needle" of sharp metal or diamond point. In principle, the method is practically identical to engraving. The ...

and

lithography Lithography () is a planographic method of printing originally based on the immiscibility of oil and water. The printing is from a stone (lithographic limestone) or a metal plate with a smooth surface. It was invented in 1796 by the German a ...

and in the difficult media of

pastels A pastel () is an art medium in a variety of forms including a stick, a square a pebble or a pan of color; though other forms are possible; they consist of powdered pigment and a binder. The pigments used in pastels are similar to those use ...

and watercolours. Thomson's early years at the Edinburgh College of Art, had all the rigours of life classes, study of the antique and copying the

Old Masters In art history, "Old Master" (or "old master")Old Masters De ...

. Thomson graduated with Diplomas in Drawing and Painting, and Architecture before travelling to Spain, Holland, Paris on various scholarships during 1910. One of his earliest surviving oils, from 1910, depicts St. Martin’s Bridge in

Toledo, Spain Toledo ( , ) is a city and municipality of Spain, capital of the province of Toledo and the ''de jure'' seat of the government and parliament of the autonomous community of Castilla–La Mancha. Toledo was declared a World Heritage Site by UN ...

. In 1912 Thomson took up employment at the

. During

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

Thomson served in the

Royal Engineers The Corps of Royal Engineers, usually called the Royal Engineers (RE), and commonly known as the ''Sappers'', is a corps of the British Army. It provides military engineering and other technical support to the British Armed Forces and is head ...

as a Second Lieutenant. Following the Battle of Arras he produced some poignant works on-the-spot and was able to record troops moving near Arras by the shattered façade of the Abbey of Mont St Eloi. Other works, including ''Reconstructing the Bridge, Montignies'' were exhibited at the RSA in 1921 and, more recently, at the Scottish Gallery in Edinburgh and at the

Scottish National Portrait Gallery The Scottish National Portrait Gallery is an art museum on Queen Street, Edinburgh. The gallery holds the national collections of portraits, all of which are of, but not necessarily by, Scots. It also holds the Scottish National Photography Co ...

. Also displayed was a finely detailed pen and pencil drawing of

Zeppelin A Zeppelin is a type of rigid airship named after the German inventor Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin () who pioneered rigid airship development at the beginning of the 20th century. Zeppelin's notions were first formulated in 1874Eckener 1938, pp ...

L 33 which crashed at New Hall Farm, Little Wigborough on the night of 23 September 1916. On 15 April 1918 Thomson married Jessie I. Hislop, the sister of his great friend and fellow Edinburgh artist Walter Balmer Hislop and they set up home in

Marchmont Marchmont is a mainly residential area of Edinburgh, Scotland. It lies roughly one mile to the south of the Old Town, separated from it by The Meadows and Bruntsfield Links. To the west it is bounded by Bruntsfield; to the south-southwest ...

. The couple had three children born between 1919 and 1924. In 1919 Thomson resumed his staff position at the Edinburgh College of Art and would remain there until 1950. During this career Thomson taught etching, composition, still life to the painting school and colour theory to the art and architecture students. Regular visitors to the Thomson family home included his student and protégé William Wilson and also

William Crozier William Crozier may refer to: *William Crozier (artillerist) (1855–1942), American general, artillerist and inventor *William Crozier (Scottish artist) (1893–1930) * William Crozier (Irish artist) (1930–2011) * William Crozier (cricketer) (187 ...

. Other close colleagues from the Edinburgh College of Art and the Royal Scottish Academy included Stanley Cursiter and David Macbeth Sutherland. In the 1920s in particular Thomson's work was at its closest to that of

Samuel Peploe Samuel John Peploe (pronounced PEP-low; 27 January 1871 – 11 October 1935) was a Scottish Post-Impressionist painter, noted for his still life works and for being one of the group of four painters that became known as the Scottish Colouris ...

, Francis Cadell and other contemporaries, notably John Guthrie Spence Smith and Penelope Beaton. Thomson's oil paintings share some of the characteristics of his colleagues at the College in particular Sir

William George Gillies Sir William George Gillies (1898–1973) was a renowned Scottish landscape and still life painter. He is often referred to simply as W. G. Gillies. Life Gillies was born in Haddington, East Lothian. He had just enrolled at the Edinburgh C ...

and Sir William MacTaggart. The early 1930s saw his series of monumental paintings of his home town including ''North Bridge and Salisbury Crags, from the North West'', now in the Edinburgh City Art Centre, and ''The Old Dean Bridge'' exhibited at the RSA in 1932. Throughout his life, Thomson painted extensively using watercolours and oils in and around Edinburgh, the Berwickshire coast, South West of Scotland on the Solway, the Scottish Borders and Abbeys ( Kelso Abbey,

Melrose Abbey St Mary's Abbey, Melrose is a partly ruined monastery of the Cistercian order in Melrose, Roxburghshire, in the Scottish Borders. It was founded in 1136 by Cistercian monks at the request of King David I of Scotland and was the chief house of th ...

Dryburgh Abbey Dryburgh Abbey, near Dryburgh on the banks of the River Tweed in the Scottish Borders, was nominally founded on 10 November (Martinmas) 1150 in an agreement between Hugh de Morville, Constable of Scotland, and the Premonstratensian canons regu ...

), Lismore, Benderloch,

Mull Mull may refer to: Places *Isle of Mull, a Scottish island in the Inner Hebrides ** Sound of Mull, between the Isle of Mull and the rest of Scotland * Mount Mull, Antarctica *Mull Hill, Isle of Man * Mull, Arkansas, a place along Arkansas Highway ...

, Stornoway, Iona, Ross and Cromarty,

Plockton Plockton ( gd, Am Ploc/Ploc Loch Aillse) is a village in the Lochalsh, Wester Ross area of the Scottish Highlands with a 2020 population of 468. Plockton settlement is on the shores of Loch Carron. It faces east away from the prevailing winds, a ...

and elsewhere.Scottish Gallery – Adam Bruce Thomson
/ref> The archives of the National Library of Scotland hold some 24 of his sketchbooks, spanning around 40 years of work. He was awarded the OBE in 1963 and become president of both the

Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Watercolour The Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Watercolours (RSW) is a Scottish organisation of painters. The first preliminary meeting of the society took place in Glasgow on 21 December 1877 as a reaction to a lack of interest in watercolour art by ...

and the Society of Scottish Artists. His work has been exhibited recently in November 2013 Edinburgh, 'Painting the Century', at an exhibition of some of his pastels ('Adam Bruce Thomson - The Pastels'), in October 2015, and in April 2017 at an exhibition of some of his watercolours (Adam Bruce Thomson 'Untroubled Certainty'), all at the Scottish Gallery, Dundas Street, Edinburgh.

Awards and honours

* 1936–37 President of the Society of Scottish Artists (SSA) * 1937 Elected Associate Royal Scottish Academy (RSA) * 1946 Elected to the Royal Scottish Academy (RSA) * 1947 Elected to the

* 1949–56 Treasurer of the RSA * 1956–63 President of the Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Watercolour (PRSW) * 1963 Awarded

Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...

* 1971 Awarded first May Marshall Brown Memorial Award of the Royal Society of Painters in Watercolour * 1971 Became Honorary Retired Member of the Royal Scottish Academy * 1976 Awarded the William J. Macaulay Memorial Award of the Royal Scottish Academy

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Thomson, Adam Bruce 1885 births 1976 deaths 20th-century Scottish painters Scottish male painters Alumni of the Edinburgh College of Art Artists from Edinburgh British Army personnel of World War I Edinburgh College of Art Landscape artists Modern painters Officers of the Order of the British Empire Royal Scottish Academicians Scottish watercolourists Scottish etchers Scottish landscape painters 20th-century British printmakers Royal Engineers officers Presidents of the Society of Scottish Artists 20th-century Scottish male artists