"Robert-Louis-Thompson"{June 26,1937-

He was an African American painter and one of the youngest African American artist of his day to gain fame in the United States.

He was the youngest of three children born to a businessman and schoolteacher.His daddy died in an auto accident when he was 13,and he was sent to live with relatives who influenced  through exposure to art and jazz.After high school graduation in 1955,Robert went back Louisville,finding work as a department store widow decorator.He soon won a scholarship to the University of Louisville's Hite Art Institute.It was there that his artistic style shifted from large-scale,gestural abstract to a more figurative expressionism.

In 1958,a summer stay in Provincetown Massachusetts,further influenced  his craft;he moved to New York  a year later.His first exhibition at the Delaney Street Museum came about within first year there and by then Robert had developed what would be his signature style.

After his marriage to Carol Plenda in 1960,the two left  for Europe for two and-a-half years,funded by a Walter Gutman Foundation Grant and a John Hay Whitney Fellowship.In 1963,upon returning to New York,he joined the Martha Jackson Gallery;all of his shows there broke attendance records.

By making his first major sale at 21,Robert was in a class by himself  in recognition in the world of

art not until the emergence of  Jean-Michael  Basquait in the 1980s would  another African-American be so embraced.

As a painter the world  at his feet,his personal life was a mess.Consumed by alcohol and drug problems,Robert and Carol fled to to Italy,hoping the change of  scenery would help.Instead,on Memorial Day in 1966,he was found dead of an apparent overdose.