Douglas Thomson is a painter, printmaker and sculptor, born in Greenock, Renfrewshire in 1955. From 1974-1978 he studied at Glasgow School of Art and at Patrick Allan-Fraser School of Art, Hospitalfield, Arbroath. A strong, figurative painter, Thomson showed at SSA, Glasgow Group, in art fairs in Bath, London and Los Angeles and widely in Germany, having spent a great part of 1989 there. Having participated in Compass Gallery, Glasgow, New Generation show after graduating, Thomson had his first solo exhibition there in 1982, his second occurring in 1987, with others at Glasgow Print Studio. He has exhibited paintings, prints and sculpture widely, with major solo shows in Glasgow, Edinburgh, London, Bath, Nürnberg, Munich and Gstaad.

Glasgow remains his home, though he has lived and worked in Germany, and travelled widely.

Marina Vaizey, art critic of The Sunday Times, wrote of him: "Thomson creates, in paintings, monoprints and sculptures of heads, a world of his own. Is it an alternative world, a world of myth? What seems to me most clear is that, capturing the viewer with a subtle web of colour, form and texture, Thomson proposes an almost endless variety of human relationships.”