Jacqueline Hick Francis Roy Thompson

This portrait by Jacqueline Hick of artist Francis Roy Thompson (1896-1966) is now in the collection of Newcastle Art Gallery, NSW, with the title Portrait of Francis Roy Thompson.

Thompson was born in Mansfield, Victoria, and trained under WB McInnes and Bernard Hall in Melbourne before settling in Adelaide around 1950. There he developed a vigorous expressionist style in his images of suburban scenes. A member of Adelaide’s Hexagon group with Hick, he was one of the city’s central figures of post-war modernism and a three-time Archibald artist himself.

Hick studied together with Jeffrey Smart at the South Australian School of Arts and Crafts. With her lifelong commitment to the visual and performing arts, she was a founding member of the Contemporary Art Society and Adelaide Theatre Group, and a board member of the Art Gallery of South Australia. Her solid academic training was complemented by her desire to experiment with media, stylistic approaches and subject matter.