Pauline Thompson

Pauline Adele Thompson (28 November 1942 – 27 July 2012) was a New Zealand painter. Her style can be described as romantic-realist. She exhibited with the Auckland Society of Arts and in the New Women Artists exhibition at the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery in 1984.

Thompson was born in 1942, the daughter of Walter Kirkpatrick Thompson and Marie Gabrielle Buffett. She died on Auckland's North Shore on 27 July 2012.

Early life and family Pauline Adele Thompson was born on the 28 November 1942 in Auckland, New Zealand. Her father, Walter Kirkpatrick Thompson, was a builder, and her mother, Marie Gabrielle Buffett, was a piano teacher. She had an older sibling. Thompson was born with haemolytic disease of the newborn, and her life was saved with a full blood transfusion immediately after birth. Later, a younger brother with the same condition would die shortly after birth. She had joint Pākehā and Tahitian ancestry. Thompson showed interest in painting from a young age. Also in the 1960s, Thompson produced a series drawing inspiration from pop art and Piet Mondrian. Late in the decade she began her "Cycle" series, featuring symbolic paintings centred on stylised palm trees. In 1967, she featured in Auckland City Art Gallery's Ten Years of New Zealand Painting exhibition, and in 1969 she was mentioned in Gordon Brown and Hamish Keith’s An introduction to New Zealand painting 1839–1967. She created a series of painting based on her ancestor, Mauatua, and other Pitcairn Islanders.