Mildred Thompson - An American Expatriate

An American Expatriate

After three years at the Academy, Thompson was ready to begin her professional career in the United States. In early 1961 she returned to New York City. The social and artistic acceptance Thompson had enjoyed in Germany, however, was not to be found even in that most cosmopolitan of American cities. She soon realized that because she was a black woman, she was refused the shows and gallery representation that she felt her work deserved. In an autobiographical essay, Thompson recounted that “One woman dealer... said that it would be impossible for me to have a show in New York as an artist. ...that it would be better if I had a white friend to take my work around, someone to pass as Mildred Thompson.” She did, however, gain an audience with William Lieberman at the Museum of Modern Art; two of her prints were purchased for the collection on his recommendation.

In the fall of 1961 and again in 1962 Thompson received fellowships to the MacDowell Colony in New Hampshire, where she worked on drawings and paintings. In 1963 she returned to Germany to live, partly because she could find no sales outlet for her work, and partly because of growing racial tension in the United States. She was not alone. Other young black artists who chose to leave the U.S. during the 1950s and 1960s include Harvey Cropper, Herbert Gentry, Arthur Hardie, Clifford Jackson, Sam Middleton, Earl Miller, Norman Morgan, Larry Potter and Walter Williams. In the words of artist David C. Driskell, "They chose a form of cultural exile over expatriation, hoping for a better day to come about in the land of their birth." All settled in Europe. Thompson established herself in the Rhineland town of Düren and once again began exhibiting and selling her work there and in the German cities of Bensberg, Aachen, and Cologne.

Thompson's work in the 1960s was figurative, but in the early 1970s she moved toward total abstraction. In Europe her works reflected the formal ideas of art for art's sake, and did not respond to the politicized art of the Black and Women's movements in the United States. According to writer Alexis de Veaux, "Thompson thought of herself as an expatriate and did not separate her identity as black from her identity as American..." although she eventually disavowed "...any claim to being American." Years later Thompson defended herself against the charge that because of her years spent in Europe, she was not a "Black" artist. In a 1987 essay for SAGE magazine she wrote that

"On certain levels, perhaps we might be able to identify with certain parts of certain African cultures. To copy symbols that one does not understand, to deliberately make use of a form that one does not know how to analyze or appreciate was for me the height of prostitution. I had spent long years trying to find out who I am and what my influences were and where they came from. It was perhaps because I had lived and studied with "whitey" that I had learned to appreciate my Blackness as well as how American I truly am. My experiences throughout Africa had made my knowledge of being an American more than clear. There are recordings in our genes that remember Africa. If they are strong enough and we are free of false denials, they will surface and appear without deliberation no matter what we do."

After ten years in Germany (during which she traveled to southern Europe and Africa) Thompson returned to the U.S. in 1975. She found that the social climate had changed somewhat for the better, and she was able to overcome many of the obstacles she encountered. She lived at first in Florida, where she was named Artist-in-Residence of the City of Tampa. In 1977 she moved to Washington, D.C., where she was Artist-in-Residence at Howard University for the 1977–78 academic year. She returned to Europe in 1981, this time to Paris, where she opened a studio in the Rue de Parme. Thompson moved to Atlanta in 1986, which was “home base” for the remainder of her life. There she taught art and art history in several area colleges, including the Atlanta College of Art. A talented writer and interviewer, she joined the staff of the periodical Art Papers in 1987.