Robert Farris Thompson

American art historian (1932–2021)

Robert Farris Thompson (December 30, 1932 – November 29, 2021) was an American art historian and writer who specialized in Africa and the Afro Atlantic world. He was a member of the faculty at Yale University from 1965 to his retirement more than fifty years later and served as the Colonel John Trumbull Professor of the History of Art. Thompson coined the term "black Atlantic" in his 1983 book Flash of the Spirit: African and Afro American Art and Philosophy – the expanded subject of Paul Gilroy's book The Black Atlantic. He lived in the Yoruba region of southwest Nigeria while he conducted his research of Yoruba arts history. He was affiliated with the University of Ibadan and frequented Yoruba village communities. Thompson studied the African arts of the diaspora in the United States, Mexico, Argentina, Cuba, Haiti, Puerto Rico, and several Caribbean islands.

In 1955, Thompson received his B. A. from Yale University. After receiving his bachelor's degree and serving in the 7th Army in Stuttgart, he continued his studies at Yale, where he received his Master's degree in 1961 and his Ph. D. in 1965. He was the first Yale professor and second person in the United States (the first being Roy Sieber at the University of Iowa in 1956) to receive a professorship in African Art history. Having served as Master of Timothy Dwight College from 1978 until 2010, he was the longest serving master of a residential college at Yale. Thompson was one of America's most prominent scholars of African art, and presided over exhibitions of African art at the National Gallery of Art in Washington D. C. He was one of the longest serving alumni of Yale.

Beginning with an article on Afro Cuban dance and music (published in 1958), Thompson dedicated his life to the study of art history of the Afro Atlantic world. and was named CAA's Distinguished Scholar in 2015. In 2007, Thompson was given the "Outstanding Contribution to Dance Research" award, by the Congress on Research in Dance.

Thompson was born in El Paso, Texas. He spoke French, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish fluently and could speak Yoruba, Ki Kongo and Creole at an intermediate level. He has been to nearly all 47 countries of Africa and is survived by a sister, two children, four grandchildren and a great granddaughter.