African American Artist Research- Brogdon Film & Photo: Alma Thomas

1891-1978

Born in Columbus, Georgia, Thomas was the eldest of four daughters. When she was fifteen, her family moved to Washington, D.C. In 1925 she began a thirty-five-year career teaching art at Shaw Junior High in Washington. So great was Thomas' sense of professional dedication that she devoted most of her energy to her students; her painting career was effectively put on hold until the 1960s. In the exhibitions of those years, Thomas drew upon all her sensory, childhood memories of rich vegetation, her own garden, the formal plantings of the capital city, and the musical sounds of nature to develop a painting style that gained her mainstream attention.

In Red Rose Cantata, Alma Thomas set up a lyrical repetition of color and shape through a series of vertical splashes of red punctuated by white intervals. The rhythmic arrangement of brushstrokes suggests musical intervals, and Thomas confirms that in the title. A cantata is a musical composition for one or more voices sung to an instrumental accompaniment. The dynamic harmony and excitement of both nature and music are combined in this piece.

Red Rose Cantata, 1973
oil on canvas
Overall: 175.3 x 127 cm (69 x 50 in.)
unframed: 128.9 x 177.2 x 3.8 cm
(50 3/4 x 69 3/4 x 1 1/2 in.)
Gift of Vincent Melzac 1976.6.1

Air View of a Spring Nursery, 1966

This mosaic-like painting by Alma Thomas is an abstract representation of a plant nursery, as seen from above. Thomas was especially influenced by displays of azaleas she saw in Washington, D.C. Acrylic on canvas.

Courtesy of Smithsonian American Art Museum

Untitled (Music Series), 1978

Though her early work was realistic, Alma Thomas is best known for the brightly colored, mosaic-like style of abstraction that she adopted in her seventies. Acrylic on canvas, 71 5/8" x 52."