Margaret Thomas (painter)

Thomas worked in London for many years and also maintained a second studio in Edinburgh from 1956. In 1984 she moved to a converted watermill in Ellingham, near Bungay in Suffolk. She died just before her 100th birthday on 27 March 2016.

After the war Thomas built up a career with portrait commissions and solo exhibitions. Her first painting to be exhibited at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition was Still Life of Norfolk Ham in 1943. She went on to exhibit at the Royal Academy for another 46 consecutive years. In 1947 she was elected a member of the Royal Society of British Artists, R.B.A. Her first solo exhibition was at the Leicester Galleries, London in 1949. Her work was “in a manner all of her own,” exploring “the tonal subtleties of oil paint in various ways” and she arranged ‘her flowers and still-life with unerring good taste.’ In 1950 she was elected a member of the New English Art Club and in 1951 became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. At an exhibition of sixteen painters at the R.B.A. Galleries in 1956 she was noted to have the most interesting pictures and that her larger pictures showed a ‘remarkably subtle exact sense of tone and colour.’

Margaret Thomas (26 September 1916 – 27 March 2016) was a British painter. She is remembered in particular for her still lifes and her flower paintings which received considerable acclaim, and are in numerous UK public collections.

Thomas was born in London, England on 26 September 1916. When she was 12 years old she was introduced to Ethel Walker, and other women artists, by her governess.  Thomas would later exhibit pieces in the same shows as Walker. In 1934 Thomas began her studies at Sidcup School of Art. She continued, having won a scholarship, at the Slade School of Fine Art in London. For her final year, she studied at the Royal Academy Schools under Thomas Monnington and Ernest Jackson. Her works were being noticed as early as 1938: commenting on an exhibition of The Women Artists, The Observer noted that “most of the outstanding pieces are contributed by the non-members such as … ‘Flu’ by Margaret Thomas …”