Alma Thomas, Red Azaleas Singing and Dancing Rock and Roll Music, 1976, acrylic on canvas, 73¾” × 158½” × 2½”, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C., Photo by Cliff via Flickr, Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic License.
Make the Time: Alma Thomas at the Tang Museum
“Do the trees near your house play music? Do the flowers in your neighborhood sing and dance?” asked African-American artist Alma Thomas (1891-1978). She perceived a vibrancy and vitality in her garden and she captured the inspiring performances on her colorful canvases. Thomas’s abstract paintings, which critics have compared to both Byzantine mosaics and George’s Seurat’s pointillist compositions, will be on view beginning February 6th in a retrospective exhibition of her art at the Tang Teaching Museum at Skidmore College.
Thomas, whose career began at age 69 after her retirement from teaching art in a middle school, was the first African-American woman to have a solo exhibition at the Whitney Museum of Art. And while her status in the canon of the history of art is secure, her work currently is enjoying a revival of appreciation as museum visitors excitedly anticipate the opening of this exhibition.
Alma Thomas, Red Azaleas Singing and Dancing Rock and Roll Music, 1976, acrylic on canvas, 73¾” × 158½” × 2½”, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C., Photo by Cliff via Flickr, Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic License.