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Bob Thompson: This House Is Mine

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This nationally touring exhibition is the first major survey of work by American artist Bob Thompson (1937–1966) to be presented in more than two decades. It includes paintings and works on paper spanning his brief but prolific career, which is characterized by a rigorous engagement with art history and a commitment to expressive figuration.

Throughout Thompson’s practice, canonical European painting served as a point of departure for his radically inventive contemporary allegories. Inspired by European old masters such as Jacopo Tintoretto and Francisco de Goya, he developed a highly personal and symbolic visual vocabulary known for its characteristic vignettes of silhouetted figures and animals in pastoral settings. His paintings recast the mythological and religious narratives of his historical sources through his own aesthetic lens, producing fascinating and enigmatic compositions in a variety of scales and employing euphoric color.

Taking its title from one of his paintings, This House Is Mine traces Thompson’s transatlantic artistic journey as he wrestled with the exclusionary Western canon. The exhibition reflects and contextualizes his significance as a contemporary artist and illuminates critical questions about the politics of representation, particularly for Black artists, while presenting new possibilities for a more inclusive art history.