Charles Thomson

Charles Thomson (born 6 February 1953) is an English artist, poet and photographer.

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.

In 1979, Thomson was a founder member of The Medway Poets, a punk performance group, who read in pubs, as well as the Kent Literature Festival and the 1981 international Cambridge Poetry Festival.

There were, however, personality clashes in the group, particularly between Billy Childish and Thomson, who said, "There was friction between us, especially when he started heckling my poetry reading and I threatened to ban him from a forthcoming TV documentary."

According to Childish: "Me & Charles were at war from 1979 until 1999. He even threatened having bouncers on the doors of Medway poet’s readings to keep me out."

Thomson has said this period was "an incredibly pressured and creative time and established the basis on which we are still working."

Other members included future Stuckist artists Bill Lewis and Sexton Ming.

Tracey Emin, then a local student, was on the outskirts of the group, being the girlfriend of Billy Childish.

In the early 1980s he was a member of The Medway Poets.

However, a TV South documentary on the group in 1982 brought them to a wider regional audience.

1987–99 he was a full-time poet, with work in over 100 anthologies.

In 1987 Thomson printed her first book of writing, Turkish Tales, which had been edited by Lewis and was published by Childish.

Thomson coined the name "Stuckism" after an insult from Tracey Emin to ex-boyfriend Childish that he was "stuck", which Childish had recorded in a 1993 poem.

The group stated its aims as promoting figurative painting and opposing conceptual art, being particularly critical of the Turner Prize and Charles Saatchi's promotion of Britart.

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, Essex, 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 1999 Thomson was reconciled with Childish and together they founded the Stuckists art group with eleven other artists.

From 2000 to 2005 he staged yearly Stuckist demonstrations against the Turner Prize (making use of props such as clown costumes and blow-up sex dolls).

Childish left the group in 2001 and Thomson remained as the figurehead, gaining extensive media coverage for his activities and outspoken views.

In the meantime the Stuckists grew to a worldwide movement of over 100 groups in 30 countries.

He stood in the 2001 United Kingdom general election, as a Stuckist candidate against the then-Culture Secretary, Chris Smith.

The same year he exhibited the then-unknown artist, Stella Vine (later made famous by Charles Saatchi).

The couple married in New York and separated after two months.

Thomson opened the Stuckism International Gallery in Shoreditch (2002–2005).

In 2004 he reported Saatchi to the OFT (Office of Fair Trading) for alleged unfair trading practices in the art world: the complaint was not upheld.

He co-curated the Stuckists' first major exhibition in a public gallery, The Stuckists Punk Victorian show at the Walker Art Gallery, for the 2004 Liverpool Biennial.

In 2005 he offered of a donation of 175 paintings by Stuckists artists from the Walker Gallery show to the Tate Gallery: this was rejected by the trustees.

Later that year he obtained, under the Freedom of Information Act, Tate Gallery minutes about the purchase of a trustee Chris Ofili's work The Upper Room.

This led to an ongoing press controversy about the purchase and resulted in an official investigation by the Charity Commission, who censured the Tate in July 2006 for acting outside its legal powers.

In June 2006 he wrote to the British Prime Minister Tony Blair asking him to intervene in the case of Stuckist artist Michael Dickinson, who was facing a possible 3-year jail sentence in Turkey for exhibiting a satirical collage of the Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.