User:Wolfboysgone

Tommy Gene Thompson is an American illustrator and painter of the Romantic Realism school, primarily known for his highly detailed, idealized depictions of life in Southern Louisiana, especially the jazz halls of New Orleans.

Personal Life
Born in 1948 near Fort Worth, Texas, Thompson was adopted at birth by Pearl Arlene Marlow and Euyles Leonard Thompson, a Fort Worth businessman and entrepreneur.

Thompson married his first wife, Vicky Taylor while a student at Arlington Heights High School in Fort Worth. The brief marriage produced one child. His marriage to his second wife, Margaret Hooper of Ardmore, Oklahoma produced two children, Gene Patrick and Amy Mariah. Thompson's third and final wife, Janice Marie Priebe, the daughter of a prominent Long Island pediatric surgeon, produced three children, Cali Arlene, Nicholas William, and Geena Rose. That marriage ended in divorce in 2002.

Professional Career
Thompson began his professional art career while still a teenager, attending art classes at Tarrant County Junior College at night while working as a technical illustrator for Volt Aeronautics during the day. He subsequently attended Texas Christian University on an art scholarship.

Thompson continued to work as a technical illustrator/graphic designer until 1970 when he relocated to New Orleans to pursue his ambitions as a fine artist. As one of the many young unrecognized artists hanging art on the fence at Jackson Square, he regularly resorted to selling sketches of the grand Victorian houses in the Garden District for income.

Ron Zappe, founder of Zappe's Potato Chips, discovered Thompson's art and subsequently introduced Thompson to the mercurial Joan Liberty, a well-known and respected gallery owner in The French Quarter. Liberty Gallery was the exclusive dealer of Thompson art until Joan Liberty's death in 2002.

Thompson's studio currently is in Fort Worth Texas.