Alma Woodsey Thomas - 20th Century & Contemporary Art Day Sale, Morning Session New York Wednesday, November 15, 2023 | Phillips

Create your first list.

Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.

  • Alma Woodsey Thomas’ style transcends categorization. Though wholly abstract, her paintings on canvas and paper take influence from a variety of historical movements, from Byzantine mosaics to Abstract Expressionism. Such influences are exemplified in Untitled from 1972—a vibrant watercolor composed of a deep gradient of magenta, intercepted by three thin vertical bands of violet, blue and green, which illustrates Thomas' deep-rooted fascination with color theory. Thomas’ renowned abstractions are housed in prominent public collections at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C., The Museum of Modern Art, New York, and The Columbus Museum. Her current exhibition at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, on view until June of 2024, features the largest public collection of her work, specifically highlighting the artist’s practice during her most prolific period, 1959 to 1978, to which the present work also belongs.

     

    After moving from Georgia to Washington, D.C. as a teenager, Thomas became inspired by the nation's capital. After graduating from Howard University as the first student to receive a Fine Arts degree from the college, she became deeply entrenched in the D.C. arts scene. For 35 years, she taught at public schools, always encouraging her students to experiment with art. In 1943, she became a founding vice president of the Barnett-Arden Gallery, the first private gallery in D.C. to exhibit works by artists of all races and backgrounds. Though continuing to create art during her lifetime, much of the recognition for her creative output was not until later in her life. Thomas became the first African American woman to have a solo exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York in 1972 at the age of 81, the same year she made this watercolor, and became the first Black woman artist to have a work acquired by the White House Collection in 2015.

    “I like the light to come in – my windows always open to light. Light is the mother of color, without which the world would seem dead; color is life.”
    —Alma Woodsey Thomas
    One of few women and few African Americans to be associated with the Washington Color School, Thomas always had deep connections to color and form that shaped her oeuvre. Inspired by the view from the kitchen window of her apartment that doubled as her studio, the watercolors that Thomas produced in the early 1970s, such as Untitled, were abstract interpretations of nature. Bringing to mind the ways in which Van Gogh and Monet were influenced by their surroundings and the way they transformed landscapes through color, Thomas explores nature in a way that is hopeful, representative of modernity and human life. “Through color I have sought to concentrate on beauty and happiness, rather than on man’s inhumanity to man.”i Transmitting the radiance of sunlight into her watercolors, the present work imbues this optimism that is prevalent throughout Thomas’ oeuvre.

     

    Alma Thomas in her studio, 1976. Image: © Michael Fischer. Courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum

     

     

    i Alma Thomas, quoted in David L. Shirey, “At 77, She’s Made It to the Whitney,” The New York Times, May 4, 1972, p. 52.

    • Provenance

      Private Collection
      Thence by descent to the present owner

    • Artist Biography

      Alma Woodsey Thomas

      American • 1891 - 1978


      A pioneer for African American and female artists alike, Alma Thomas developed a signature style that transcended categorization. Often associated with the Washington Color School, Thomas’ abstract painting practice references art historical movements spanning all the way from Byzantine mosaics to post-impressionist Pointillism to Abstract Expressionism. 

      As the first recipient of a fine arts degree from Howard University in 1924, followed by a 35 year-long tenure as a public school teacher in Washington, D.C., Thomas was an avid supporter of the arts. For the benefit of her students, she would invite leading African American artists and architects to present their work, as well as embark on many field trips to local galleries and institutions.

      Beginning in 1950, Thomas took courses in creative painting and color theory at American University, where she would hone her signature style. Many of her paintings created in the late 1950s and early 1960s featured active, gestural strokes with varying densities, in contrast to those of her contemporaries such as Morris Louis who favored more uniform, softer color fields. Thomas’ watercolors from this period were often inspired by the view outside of her kitchen window, which doubled as her studio. In 1960, Thomas exhibited a selection of these small-scale compositions at the Dupont Circle Gallery in her first solo show at age 69. 

      View More Works

Property from an Esteemed Maryland Collection

101

Untitled

signed and dated "A W Thomas '72" lower right
acrylic on paper
22 x 30 in. (55.9 x 76.2 cm)
Painted in 1972.

Full Cataloguing

Estimate
$120,000 - 180,000 

Sold for $120,650

Contact Specialist

Annie Dolan
Specialist, Head of Sale, Morning Session
+1 212 940 1288
adolan@phillips.com

20th Century & Contemporary Art Day Sale, Morning Session

New York Auction 15 November 2023