Jon Thompson is an artist, curator and academic known for his involvement in the development of the YBA artist generation. As the Head of Goldsmiths Department of Art in the 1980s, Thompson opened up specialisms and allowed students to move freely between the different modes of practice, such as painting, sculpture, photography and printing, etc. In the past his own art has moved from painting to a conceptual photography and sculpture, but since his retirement from teaching Thompson has been concentrating on a kind of abstract painting. This separated Goldsmiths from the dominance of art schools like St Martins. In 1988 he was involved in the curation of the now legendary Freeze warehouse exhibition along with various art students and Damien Hirst whom Thompson had accepted on to the course and tutored since that time. Jon Thompson is now head of the MA Fine Art course at Middlesex University's School of Art and continues to lecture on artists such as Marcel Duchamp and Piero Manzoni. He has also curated shows at the Hayward Gallery in London including Gravity and Grace and Falls the Shadow with Barry Barker. 

January 1st, 1936 in (Age 88)