Dictionary of National Biography, 1912 supplement/Tomson, Arthur
TOMSON, ARTHUR (1859–1905), landscape painter, born at Chelmsford, Essex, on 5 March 1859, was sixth child of Whitbread Tomson by his wife Elizabeth Maria. From a preparatory school at Ingatestone in Essex he went to Uppingham. As a lad he showed an artistic bent, and on leaving school he studied art at Dusseldorf. Returning to England in 1882. he settled down to landscape painting, working chiefly in Sussex and Dorset. hH} landscapes were poetic, and rather similar in sentiment to the art of George Mason and Edward Stott. Although he was at his best in landscape, cats were favourite subjects of study, and he occasionally painted other animals. At the New English Art Club, of which he was an early member and in whose affairs he took warm interest, he was a regular exhibitor, but he also showed at the Royal Academy from 1883 to 1892 and at the New Gallery. An excellent and characteristic example of his refined art is the canvas called 'The Chalk Pit,' which was presented by his widow to the Victoria and Albert Museum. He was also an interesting writer on art, and his book on 'Jean-François Millet and the Barbizon School' (1903; reissued in 1905) is sympathetic and discriminating. For some years he was art critic for the 'Morning Leader,' under the pseudonym of Verind, and he contributed to the 'Art Journal' descriptions of places in the southern counties, illustrated by his own drawings. He illustrated 'Concerning Cats,' poems selected by his first wife 'Graham R. Tomson' (1892).
He died on 14 June 1905 at Robertsbridge, and was buried in Steeple churchyard, near Wareham, in Dorset.
Tomson married in 1887 his first wife Rosamund (1863-1911), writer of poetry, yoimgest child of Benjamin Williams Ball, whom he divorced in 1896, and who afterwards married Mr. H. B. Marriott Watson. Tomson married secondly in 1898 Miss Hastings, a descendant of Warren Hastings, who survived him with a son.
[Art Journal, 1905; Grave's Roy. Acad. Exhibitors, 1906; private information.]