The first student to earn a fine arts degree from Howard University artist Alma Thomas (1891–1978) spent years as a teacher, dedicating herself completely to painting only after she retired. Exhibiting at New York’s Whitney Museum of American Art in 1972, Thomas remarked, “When I was a little girl . . . there were things we could do and things we couldn’t. One of the things we couldn’t do was go into museums, let alone think of hanging our work there. My, times have changed.”
Earth Sermon - Beauty, Love And Peace
Object Details
- Date
- 1971
- Artist
- Alma Thomas, American, b. Columbus, Georgia, 1891–1978
- Provenance
- Mr. and Mrs. David K. Anderson, New York, to 28 October 1980
- The Martha Jackson Memorial Collection: Gift of Mr. and Mrs. David K. Anderson, 1980
- Exhibition History
- FORT WAYNE MUSEUM OF ART, Indiana. "Alma W. Thomas: A Retrospective of the Paintings," 11 September-8 November 1998, cat. Tour: TAMPA MUSEUM OF ART, 22 January-21 March 1999; NEW JERSEY STATE MUSEUM, Trenton, 16 April-13 June; ANACOSTIA MUSEUM, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, 16 July-12 September; COLUMBUS MUSEUM, Ohio, 17 October-9 January 2000.
- HIRSHHORN MUSEUM AND SCULPTURE GARDEN, Smithsonian Institiution, Washington, DC. "Put It This Way: (Re)Visions of the Hirshhorn Collection," 24 June 2022-16 July 2023, no cat.
- Published References
- HILEMAN, KRISTEN and HIRSH, JENNIE. Fields + Formations: A Survey of Mid-Atlantic Abstraction (Wilmington: The Delaware Contemporary, 2021), color ill. p. 10.
- AQUIN, STEPHANE, et al. Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden: The Collection (New York: DelMonico Books, 2022), pl. 179, p. 197.
- See more items in
- Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden Collection
- School
- African-American Abstraction/Washington Color School
- Credit Line
- Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, The Martha Jackson Memorial Collection: Gift of Mr. and Mrs. David K. Anderson, 1980
- Data Source
- Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden
- Accession Number
- 80.107
- Type
- Painting
- Medium
- Acrylic on canvas
- Dimensions
- 72 × 52 1/8 in. (182.9 × 132.4 cm)
- Metadata Usage
- Not determined
- Record ID
- hmsg_80.107
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