Ann Turner Thomson, 77, associated with some of Scotland's major arts and conservation organisations
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http://news.scotsman.com/obituaries.cfm?id=1251132006
Ann Turner Thomson - an appreciation
Interior designer and arts campaigner
Born: 23 May, 1929, in London.
Died: 15 August, 2006, in Edinburgh, aged 77.
ANN Turner Thomson was a strong and effective campaigner for the arts
in Scotland, serving as either member, director or trustee for some of
the country's major arts and conservation organisations.
She was the daughter of Nancy and Charles Rew, a business director.
Early in the Second World War her mother took her and her sister Jane
to Canada, where her brother John was born; they returned later and
she continued her education at Sherborne School .
After a Cordon Bleu course and a secretarial course she joined the
interior design firm of White Allum to be well trained by Joe Reading.
Under him she worked among other projects on designs for the QE2 and
Queen Elizabeth's coronation chairs.
She married Gordon Turner Thomson in 1958; in 1965 they moved to
Edinburgh to pursue their careers and bring up their son and three
daughters.
Working as Ann Rew, Ann became much in demand as a skilled interior
designer. She combined this work with numerous public activities,
particularly in the cause of the arts. She served on the Councils of
the National Trust for Scotland and of the Edinburgh International
Festival, and was a director of Edinburgh Printmakers and Art In
Partnership.
As a keen member of the Saltire Society committee, for its annual
awards for housing and architecture she insisted that buildings should
be judged for their interiors and their impact on the people who would
use them as much as for their external effect. She was also the prime
mover in the society's purchase award scheme for new work by a young
artist in the Royal Scottish Academy's annual exhibition.
In her five years as a member of the Scottish Arts Council, she
developed a strong interest in the crafts and founded an Association
for the Applied Arts in Scotland, in order for the crafts to qualify
for an extra grant; she put in a mountain of work to make it a
success.
Perhaps Ann's greatest achievement was the organising of joint
exhibitions for Japanese and Scottish artists in Iwate in 1998. She
dived into this with the enthusiastic support of her sculptor daughter
Kate, married to a Japanese sculptor. Ann emerged triumphant, having
organised the project and found finance for it almost single-handed.
The work of 84 Scottish artists was transported to Japan, with the
support of P&O; afterwards a special exhibition at the National Museum
in Edinburgh showed work done by some of the artists while in Japan.
The whole project had great value in encouraging continuing
co-operation between Japanese and Scottish artists.
In 1993, the trustees of the National Galleries of Scotland decided to
promote a new gallery building in Glasgow and move the National
Portrait Gallery from Edinburgh to a subordinate position in the other
city. There was a great outcry of protest; the Saltire Society, with
Ann as one of the leaders, organised a packed public meeting in
January 1994 at which unwavering loyalty to the Portrait Gallery in
Queen Street was declared. The day was won; the Secretary of State,
Ian Lang, refused to agree to the totally misguided proposal and
confirmed that the Portrait Gallery would stay in its fine building in
Edinburgh.
Ann's last success, as a director of the Scottish Sculpture Trust,
then to be wound up, was to commission a portrait by David Mack of Sir
Eduardo Paolozzi, as a monument to the trust. The idea was endorsed by
the sculptor himself shortly before he died; the portrait, made from
hundreds of postcards showing Paolozzi's studio, was unveiled in the
Kirkcaldy Museum this spring.
Ann's own house was adorned with striking works of contemporary
Scottish art which delighted her many friends at the splendid parties
she and Gordon gave. Her guiding ambition was to encourage young
artists and provide opportunities for them to show good work to many
more people.
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Trout Mask Replica