About Elliott Thompson

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Elliott Thompson's career as an artist spanned more than six decades.  He first studied art in Paris in the 1950s at the academy of Cubist Andre Lhote.  In the 1960s, he retired from the U.S. government, where he had worked as a budget analyst, and devoted himself to art  full-time.  A few years after taking classes at the Corcoran Academy of Art in Washington, DC, he began exhibiting his geometric abstract canvases.  He also joined the faculty of the Corcoran.  From the beginning, Thompson's approach to painting was mathematical and analytical.  Although he was often referred to as a member of the Washington Color School, he has always felt that his work does not fit neatly into that category.  Elliott Thompson exhibited his art in several group and solo shows from the late 1960s through the early 1990s.  In 1974, the Corcoran Gallery of Art presented a retrospective exhibit of his work. 

Elliott Thompson was raised in Washington,  DC and spent much of his life in the DC metropolitan area.  A five year stay in Paris in the 1950s turned him into a committed Francophile.  From 1984 to 1987, he lived and painted in a small village in the South of France.  From 1987 to 2016, he made his home in northern Virginia with his wife, Robin, who is also an artist.  Until his death at age 103, Elliott was a proud father, grandfather, and great-grandfather. 

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