Staff news

French honours for art historians

Husband-and-wife art historians Richard and Belinda Thomson have been honoured by the French government.

Monet's en norvegienne

Richard Thomson, Watson Gordon Professor of Fine Art, has been made Officer dans l’Ordre des Arts.

Belinda Thomson, an Honorary Professor with History of Art, has been made Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.

Recognition

These awards are made by the French Ministry of Culture in recognition of significant contributions to the arts, literature, or the propagation of these fields.

Up to 60 individuals a year are made Officer, while the title of Chevalier is conferred upon up to 200 recipients anually.

French art experts

Professor Thomson, who has held his chair at Edinburgh since 1996, is an expert on late 19th and early 20th century French art and has published widely in the field.

He has curated, either individually or as part of a team, many major international loan exhibitions.

Belinda Thomson specialises in late 19th century France, with specific reference to Gauguin, Van Gogh, the Nabi group, piano music and associated imagery.

Author of several books, she has lectured widely in many galleries in the UK and internationally.

She was principal curator of the exhibition Gauguin: Maker of Myth, held at the Tate Modern, London and the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.

We are delighted and honoured to have received these awards from the French government for our separate work on French art over three decades, culminating in 2010–11 with Belinda's Gauguin exhibition for Tate Modern and the National Gallery, Washington, DC and my work on the Monet exhibition at the Grand Palais, Paris.

Professor Richard ThomsonWatson Gordon Professor of Fine Art

Image credit: service presse Rmn / Hervé Lewandowski

Related Links

History of Art