Nature's Red Impressions

Alma Thomas arrived in Washington, D.C. with her family in 1907. They moved into a house at 1530 15th Street, NW, where she would live and work until her death. Today the residence is included on the National Register of Historic Places. In 1924, she became the first graduate of the Fine Arts Department and the first black woman to receive a B.S. degree in Fine Arts from Howard University. She taught art at Shaw Junior High School from 1924-1960. It was not until her retirement from teaching that she was able to devote herself entirely to her own painting. Thomas is best known for her mosaic-like compositions of scintillating patches of pure color applied over the surface of the canvas, and her work is often related to the art of the Washington Color School. "Nature’s Red Impressions" is typical of her fully-developed style, with its areas of red, yellow, green and blue organized into vertical stripe formations. Thomas said that sunlight, flowers, leaves and vistas from airplanes were the basis for her abstract compositions of dancing color and light. Thomas’s importance as an American artist was fully recognized with her one-person exhibition at the Whitney Museum of Art, New York, in 1972, as well as with retrospectives at the Corcoran Gallery of Art and the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

Erin Jenoa Gilbert (Author), Alma Thomas: Resurrection, Mnuchin Gallery, New York, NY, 2019

Karen Wilkin (Author), The Joy of Color, Mnuchin Gallery, New York, NY, 2018

Generations of the Washington Color School, The Dimock Gallery, Washington DC, June 07, 1984 - August 10, 1984

Full Circle: Hue and Saturation in the Washington Color School, Luther W. Brady Art Gallery, Washington DC, June 14, 2018 - October 26, 2018

The Joy of Color, Mnuchin Gallery, New York NY, November 01, 2018 - December 08, 2018

Democracy Collection, May 2023 - Acropolis Museum in Athens, Greece late June 2023 - United Nations Palace of Nations in Geneva, Switzerland September 2023, Smithsonian Museum of American History in Washington, DC

10th Anniversary Exhibition: Area Invitational Painting Show, The Dimock Gallery, Washington DC, May 19, 1977 - June 17, 1977

400 Years of Art: GW Collects, The Dimock Gallery, Washington DC, January 25, 1979 - February 23, 1979

Alma Thomas: Resurrection, Mnuchin Gallery, New York NY, September 10, 2019 - October 19, 2019

African-American Artists in Washington: Selections from the Permanent Collection of the Howard University Gallery of Art and the GW Permanent Collection, The Dimock Gallery, Washington DC, December 12, 1991 - January 02, 1992

Generations of the Washington Color School Revisited, Luther W. Brady Art Gallery, Washington DC, May 09, 2007 - October 05, 2007

Expansive Visions: GW Collections Past - Present - Future, May 20, 2016 - October 26, 2018

Alma W. Thomas: Everything is Beautiful, Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, VA, July 9-October 3, 2021; The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC, October 30, 2021-January 23, 2022; Frist Art Museum, Nashville, TN, February 25- June 5, 2022; The Columbus Museum, Columbus, GA, July 1-September 25, 2022. (Co-organized by the Chrysler Museum of Art and The Columbus Museum).

Alma W. Thomas: Everything is Beautiful, Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, VA, July 9-October 3, 2021; The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC, October 30, 2021-January 23, 2022; Frist Art Museum, Nashville, TN, February 25- June 5, 2022; The Columbus Museum, Columbus, GA, July 1-September 25, 2022. (Co-organized by the Chrysler Museum of Art and The Columbus Museum).