Alma Thomas started painting after a 35 year career teaching at Shaw Junior High in Washington, D.C. … She was an an expressionist painter considered part of the Washington Colour School, an art movement of abstract expressionists mostly existing from the 1950’s through the 1970’s.
She was born in Columbus, Georgia in 1891… She lived most of her life in Washington, D.C. as her family moved there in 1906 to escape the violence against Black people in Georgia… Although she did take art classes in High School, she chose to study at Miner Normal School and earned her teaching degree at University of the District of Columbia.
Despite suffering racist segregation and prejudice, Alma Thomas gained recognition as an African-American* female artist… In 1921 she started studying fine arts at Howard University (mostly sculpture) and gained her Bachelors of Science in Fine Arts in 1924. She could possibly have been the first woman in the US to gain a bachelor’s degree in art…
«Creative art is for all time and is therefore independent of time. It is of all ages, of every land, and if by this we mean the creative spirit in man which produces a picture or a statue is common to the whole civilized world, independent of age, race and nationality; the statement may stand unchallenged.»
-Alma Thomas, 1970
In 1960, upon retiring from teaching, and at the age of 68/69, Alma Thomas became a full-time artist. Influenced by the abstract expressionists, she began to create colour field paintings… In 1963 she created «Watusi» based upon «The Snail«, a Matisse cut-out, but changing the order and the colours…
She was criticised for not following the trend of younger Black artists of the time who were creating protest art. Her reply was: «The use of color in my paintings is of paramount importance to me. Through color I have sought to concentrate on beauty and happiness in my painting rather than on man’s inhumanity to man.»… She walked on the March on Washington of 1963 and created a painting in 1964 titled «March on Washington» that hangs in the National Gallery of Art.
In 1966 she had her first exhibit at Howard University’s gallery of art… At age 81, in 1972, Alma Thomas became the first African-American female painter to have a solo exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art… She was labelled as an African-American artist, however, she denied labels placed on her as an artist or her identity as a black woman…
I am truly an admirer of this phenomenal woman and artist. I love to read about artists that in Art School they never mention, and it makes me despise formal art education even more. Although I do advocate technical education and art history for students of art, but students must choose wisely who they study and learn from. Alma Thomas painted in the salon of her home, or in her kitchen. She propped the canvases on her lap or against a coffee table. This resonated greatly with me for that is exactly what I used to do when I started and I still do that now when I paint «on location» in my summer place, away from my home studio in Spain.
Thomas lived all her life in her family’s home at 1530 15th Street, NW, Washington, D.C. She never married, declaring she was married to her art, and died in 1978.
Here are some of her works:
* NOTA BENE: Although I lived in the US many, many years, I could never understand this practice of categorising their citizens…and others…as either white, black, and now coloured. I thought it was offensive to call black people of the US «coloured folk»? Now they are using the term again. Why cannot they simply recognise human beings as human beings? Why create all these differences? Lamentably, something that had never been this way in Europe, many Europeans are imitating this ridiculous practice that can only lead to discrimination and prejudice. Just my thoughts…
CHEERS
JaZzArt en València 