McTear's Timed
Lot 26
pastel on paper, signed framed and under glass image size 82cm x 58cm, overall size 115cm x 90cm Note: Ally (Alasdair Neil Renwick) Thompson, was a Scottish painter of the New Glasgow Boys generation alongside Peter Howson, Ken Currie, Adrian Wisniewski and the late Steven Campbell. Born in Glasgow, he studied at Glasgow School of Art from 1975 to 1980, gaining a B.A. First Class Honours in Fine Art, and a diploma in postgraduate studies with high commendation and a travelling scholarship. In 1989, a solo exhibition of his work at the Barbizon Gallery (Glasgow) was visited by the international art promoter Norbert Binotti, who then brought Thompson to international prominence with a one-man show in New York and major exhibitions in Paris. Ally lived and worked periodically in Provence in the 1990s. He subsequently steadily consolidated his international reputation with exhibitions in Britain, Europe and North America, appearing in galleries such as Flowers East in London and Gallery Albert 1er in Paris. A close friend of Peter Howson, with whom he was a fellow student at the Glasgow School of Art, both men and their work were almost equally unknown when they shared one of their first exhibitions, a two-man show at the Art School itself in 1984. Ally Thompson was naturally shy in new company rather than a bold and forthright salesman of his own work. He painted in several distinctly different styles, from surrealist to abstract to expressionist landscape and much in between, making him hard to categorise and package for promoters and critics. Visiting his studio in the early 1980s Alec Mather, a successful Lanarkshire businessman, was one of the first of several almost surrogate father figures in Thompson's life. He offered to pay Ally twice what he was asking for one his paintings on condition that the young artist gave up his day job as a school teacher. Thompson never looked back creatively. Alec Mather remained a friend, patron and supporter for the rest of the artist's life. Outside of Scotland, through the friendship and support of Norbert Binotti and (after his untimely death) Norbert's brother Claude, Thompson found an invigorating new audience for his work in New York, Paris and the South of France. For all his non-materialist philosophy, Thompson was not above a bit of name-dropping on occasion, and like any Glaswegian boy Ally was suitably astonished to sometimes find himself in the company (and painting collections of) the likes of Bob Geldof, Petula Clark, Richard Jobson, Picasso's son Claude and even France's President Mitterand.
