Thomson, Alfred Reginald "Tommy"

Born deaf to British parents in Bangalore, Mysore, India; student at the Margate School for the Deaf and the Barber Oral School (North London). Became a senior academian in the Royal Academy of Art. Appointed official War Artist in Britain during World War II, after being passed over in favor of a hearing man who later resigned. Painted portraits of members of the British royal family, 1959; exhibited in the Carnegie Institute of Art, Pittsburgh, PA, and in the International Exhibition of Fine and Applied Arts by Deaf Artists, 1934. Biography by Arthur F. Dimmock is "Tommy" (1991).