Early Studies
Thompson grew up in Jacksonville, Florida. Her formal art training began in 1953 when she entered Howard University in Washington, D.C. There she found a mentor in James A. Porter (1905–1970), who was head of the school’s art department. He arranged for Thompson to receive a scholarship at the end of her junior year for summer study at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine. After Thompson received the Bachelor of Arts from Howard, Porter assisted her in entering the Brooklyn Museum of Art School on a Max Beckmann Scholarship. She began to exhibit, and her work was accepted for the Art U.S.A. ’58 exhibition in Madison Square Garden.
During that time Thompson applied and was turned down for a Fulbright Scholarship. Feeling herself ready for study in Europe, Thompson decided to go there on her own. She worked to save money during the rest of the school year and, through the auspices of Samella Lewis (1924–), got a summer job teaching ceramics at Florida A&M University in Tallahassee. In this way she earned enough for steamship passage to Europe.
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