42 years ago I met a man who made me feel like I’d just found the lost glove to my favorite pair. He was a photographer who already gained attention for his work, winning awards in Kodak’s International Photo contest two years in a row. We immediately teamed up his talent with my administrative skills. In the beginning we participated in the Art Fair circuit. Art ran like blood in Bruce’s veins as both his father and grandfather were artists. Through art fairs, Bruce landed a job with the State of Wisconsin updating their images for ad campaigns. When that job was completed we married and had two children.
Meantime, Bruce’s father was becoming a well-known American Impressionist painter. The family opened a gallery in San Francisco in 1977, The Richard Thompson Gallery. It was a successful venture until Richard’s death in 1991.
Settling down with his own studio, Bruce began incorporating his fine art skills with commercial photography until the digital age came and commercial photographers went. The next step was to go back to his fine art roots and offer large scale photographs of his images to the public. This worked well enough to reinvent the studio as a gallery.
In 2012 we decided to merge the works of Richard Earl Thompson, Bruce Thompson and our son, Ben Thompson at the Gallery and on the website. Ben, our technical guru, artist and software designer by trade, has once again managed to rebuild our website and drag us kicking and screaming into the cloud. We hope it will make navigation easier and if not, just tell Ben. He can fix anything.
By the way, be on the lookout for photographs from our daughter, Emily and artwork by her son, Luca. His favorite pastime as of late is drawing in his sketchbook.
Cheers!
Joan Thompson