Oil and ink on canvas, 1966. 1410x1620 mm; 55 1/2x63 3/4 inches.
Provenance: the artist; Carol Thompson, the artist's wife; thence by descent to a private collection; private collection.
Exhibited: Martha Jackson Gallery, New York, with the gallery label on the stretcher bars; Bob Thompson, the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, September 25, 1998 - January 3, 1999.
Illustrated: Bob Thompson, the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, pl. 45, p. 72 and pl. 158, p. 172.
The evocative Last Painting was identified and titled as such by the artist's wife, Carol. They had moved to Italy in 1965 so Thompson could study the Renaissance paintings that inspired him. He returned to the grand compositions based on Old Master paintings. While recovering from gall bladder surgery in Rome in 1966, Thompson began this painting. The operation had long been postponed, and his physical deterioration continued soon after. He died in Rome just before his 29th birthday, only eight years after the start of his career in Provincetown. This unfinished painting seems a fitting reminder of his meteoric career.
