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The Olive Tree |
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The Olive Tree |
Drawings and watercolors created throughout the past seven decades in venues from Great Britain to Grand Manan were on display in an exhibit and sale, with proceeds benefiting The University of Maine's Fogler Library.
The works on paper by artist Arline K. Thomson were exhibited May 18-30 in the Presidents' Room on the second floor of the library. An artist's reception and sale was held Sunday, May 18, from 1-3 p.m., in the library's Thomas Lynch University Club. The events were sponsored by the Friends of Fogler Library.
The more than 200 drawings and paintings by Thomson in the exhibit, titled "From Great Britain to Grand Manan," offered a lifetime perspective of the artist. The earliest pieces dated to when Thomson was a student at the Massachusetts School of Art, where she graduated with a degree in design in 1934. The show also included her most recent works that she has completed at the age of 90.
Thomson, a native of Methuen, Mass., has a long-held love of the landscapes on both sides of the Atlantic. During her more than 30-year career in graphic design at The University of Maine, Thomson captured the character of the campus and the state. Beginning in 1974, she also took trips to London to sketch the historic cityscape.
Thomson began her professional career at the Massachusetts School of Art. She worked in advertising in Boston and New York City before moving to Maine in 1953. For nearly a decade, Thomson designed and illustrated 10 children's books.
In 1962, she became the University of Maine's first graphic designer. She "officially" retired from UMaine in 1985, but continued working part-time for the university until 1992. Through the years, her fine art was exhibited at the University of Maine Museum of Art and throughout the state. Her 1994 book, Discovering Elizabethan London: Diary and Sketches, is based on the 16th-century survey of that city by John Stow.
Thomson, a long-time resident of Old Town, now lives in Orono and Port Clyde.
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