Boston curator and artist. Abbott was born in Minnesota. After her parents’ divorice, she lived with her grandmother and three aunts. In 1940, she graduated from Carleton College and joined the Art Students League of New York. Abbott married Lawerence Evans Thompson (1918-2005) a lieutenant in the US Navy who later became a professor of business administration at Harvard University.  After WWII, the family moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts where her husband had secured a job.