While John Edward Thompson never achieved much of a national profile, the gifted, forward-looking artist was an influential teacher who injected a much-needed jolt of modernity into Colorado art.
Thompson (1882-1945), the focus of a wide-ranging career survey at the Denver Public Library in 2005, is featured in a smaller, less in-depth yet still engaging overview continuing through Jan. 17 at the University of Denver’s Myhren Gallery, 2121 E. Asbury Ave.
Like many other American artists of the period, the Buffalo native lived and worked in Paris in the early 1900s, gaining valuable exposure to cubism, fauvism and the other innovative developments coursing through the city.
This compact show, commendably curated by Sarah Mills, Kirsten Nicholas and Molly Nuanes, three students in DU’s museum studies program, includes sketches from this period as well as a related John Marin-like watercolor, “Untitled (Study for Paris Rooftops)” circa 1918.
In addition to other paintings and drawings that offer glimpses of Thompson’s stylistic diversity, the show offers welcome background on his little-known murals at DU and St. John’s Episcopal Cathedral.
Noon to 4 p.m. daily. Free. 303-871-3716 or /myhrengallery.htm. Kyle MacMillan
