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From: sherry heschong <>
Subject: Re: THOMPSON: Ann Turner Thomson--d;15/8/2006>UK
Date: Sun, 27 Aug 2006 18:41:13 -0700 (PDT)
In-Reply-To: <012901c6c9f9$5a516040$0f01a8c0@holmrook>


peter please explain what to do with these. I just got chewed out by a joy i am doing it all wrong

Peter_McCrae <> wrote: The Scotsman online 25/8/2006


Ann Turner Thomson
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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