G. David Thompson

George David Thompson (March 20, 1899 – June 26, 1965) was an American investment banker, industrialist, and modern art collector, based in Pittsburgh. He started as a banker, but by 1945 was running four steel mills. In 1959, Pittsburgh's Carnegie Museum of Art rejected his offer of over 600 artworks, unwilling to build a gallery bearing his name, and he gradually sold much of his collection, including 88 works by Paul Klee and 70 by Alberto Giacometti, although he left the Carnegie Museum over 100 artworks when he died in 1965.

Early life George David Thompson was born in Newark, Ohio in 1899, and grew up in Indiana, going to high school in Peru, Indiana. and by the age of 60, Thompson had acquired at least 600 works of modern art, having already given Le Fumeur by Jean Metzinger to the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1953.

Thompson wanted his collection to stay in Pittsburgh. However, in 1959 Pittsburgh's Carnegie Museum of Art rejected his offer, which was on condition that a building bearing his name was constructed to house the collection. According to the Quarterly, which estimated his collection as being worth US$350 million in 2006,

Eventually Thompson gave the Carnegie Museum of Art more than 100 artworks, including paintings by Adolph Gottlieb, Josef Albers, Jean Dubuffet, Willem de Kooning, Alberto Burri, Jean Metzinger, Carlo Carrà, Francis Picabia, David Smith, Henry Moore, Marino Marini, Isamu Noguchi, Jean-Desiré-Gustave Courbet, Adolphe Monticelli, James Lambdin, David Blythe, and John Kane.

Personal life Thompson and his wife, Helene, lived at Stone's Throw, 4554 Brownsville Road, in Whitehall in suburban Pittsburgh .

His son, G. David Thompson Jr., died in 1958, and two Henry Moore sculptures, one to Harvard University, the other to the Carnegie Museum of Art, were given in his memory. He donated works by Alberto Burri, Franz Kline, Robert Motherwell, Karel Appel, and Victor Vasarely in his honour.

Helene Thompson died in September 1982.