Sydney Lough Thompson was born in Oxford, North Canterbury in 1877 and studied at Canterbury College School of Art with Petrus van der Velden before departing for Europe in 1900 to further his studies Like so many of his contemporaries, Thompson went to Europe to further his artistic education. There he enrolled at the Heatherly School of Art. However, the technical perfection demanded of the school's pupils only seemed to have the effect of making the young artist reluctant to paint. Thompson left England in 1901 to study in Paris at the Académie Julian and took classes with Gabriel Ferrier and William-Adolphe Bouguereau. The French school had little influence on Thompson's art instead, he found inspiration in Constable and Turner in England, the French impressionists and Paul Cezanne in France.

Thompson travelled extensively and spent three years in Brittany, where his impressionist style - full of sunlight and colour and of boats and ports - began to evolve. His works of this period are filled with vibrant hues of colour that brilliantly capture the Concarneau light. Thompson would return to Brittany again and again throughout his career. It was here that he defied the conventional techniques of the time and painted en plein air in the markets and harbours of Brittany. The region had attracted many artists, amongst them Frances Hodgkins, Paul Gauguin and Claude Monet and it became a major source of inspiration for Thompson's work. Over the next seventy years of his working life, he spent more than half that time living and painting in France.