Anne Thomson

Ann Thomson is a prominent and celebrated Sydney based painter and sculptor. She graduated from the National Art School in 1962 and has exhibited extensively throughout Australia and internationally.

“Painterly painting,” “action painting,” “abstract expressionism,” “painterly abstraction,” “painterly improvisation,” “gestural painting”—these are time-honoured art-historical terms that are associated with Ann Thomson’s idiom, all of them implying that, before we see anything else in a painting, we will notice the medium; we will appreciate its materiality; we will see the masses of colour and tone, distinct brushmarks, rhythms, pulsations . . . and while those attributes may not always be representational in intent or in effect, sometimes they are.

Terrence Maloon for Artist Profile 2024

Thomson’s work is represented in numerous important public and private collections, including the National Gallery of Australia, the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Queensland Art Gallery, Newcastle Art Gallery and the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection in Madrid. She has won the Wynne Prize, the Geelong Contemporary Art Prize & the Kedumba Drawing Award.