Charles Thomson (artist)

Charles Thomson
Charles Thomson
Born	6 February 1953 (1953-02-06) Romford, England
Nationality	British
Education	Maidstone College of Art
Known for	Painting
Notable work	Sir Nicholas Serota Makes an Acquisitions Decision
Movement	Stuckism

Charles Thomson (born 6 February 1953) is an English artist, poet and photographer. In the early 1980s he was a member of The Medway Poets. In 1999 he named and co-founded the Stuckists art movement with Billy Childish. He has curated Stuckist shows, organised demonstrations against the Turner Prize, run an art gallery, stood for parliament and reported Charles Saatchi to the OFT. He is frequently quoted in the media as an opponent of conceptual art. He was briefly married to artist Stella Vine.

Charles Thomson was born in Romford, London Borough of Havering, East London, and educated at Brentwood School, Essex, where he was a classmate of Douglas Adams. While still at school, he organised mixed media arts events and contributed to Broadsheet, a magazine edited by Paul Neil Milne Johnstone and published by Artsphere, a school arts group. Outside school, he started the Havering Arts Lab. this resulted in a headline "Sex Orgy Tale—Group Banned" in the local Havering Express newspaper. In 1970 he produced a satirical magazine, called 'Lubricant', which ran for 10 issues. In 1971 he stood (unsuccessfully) as a Dwarf candidate in the Havering council elections, and was involved in anti-pollution protests. He distributed "underground" magazines around London, including "Schoolkids OZ". In 1975 he went to Maidstone College of Art, where he was the only person in ten years to fail the painting degree. 1979–87 he worked part-time as a telephonist and receptionist at Kent County Ophthalmic and Aural Hospital. 1987–99 he was a full-time poet, with work in over 100 anthologies.