July - Week 1
Written 09/07/2025, Updated 10/07/2025 (Typo corrections 15/07/2025)
Who am I studying?
So for this month, I am studying an artist from the Civil Rights era in American history - Alma Thomas.
Short biography
She was born on September 22nd, 1891 in Columbus, Georgia. Her mother was a seamstress and her father was a businessman, so they were relatively well to do finacially. Not that this protected them from racist violence. Her father was attacked by a lynch mob not long before Alma was born and the racism in Georgia intensified, leading to race riots in 1906. So it is not surprising that they fled Georgia and moved to the (somewhat) less racist Washington D.C (which was segregated but at least let Black people go to the library, unlike in Columbus).
Tracking her art career is interesting as in some ways it didn't start until she was in her late 60s, but in other ways it started in her childhood. She was always interested in art and wanted to become an architect but couldn't really pursue this due to being a woman (and Black). She trained as a kindergarten (infants) teacher in the 1910s which she did until 1921 when at the age of 30 she went to Howard University and majored in fine art - she was actually the first ever graduate of Howard's Fine Arts Programme.
She then taught art for the next 35 years at Shaw Junior High School, a school for Black children aged between 11-14. She very much did more than just teach students in classes, she arranged community arts programmes to get the kids interested in art and in 1938 she organised, as she put it; "...the first art gallery in the D.C. public schools in 1938, securing paintings by outstanding Negro artists from the Howard Gallery of Art."
She also kept up her art education in her middle age, getting a Masters in Art Education in 1934 and in 1950 she began taking night and weekend classes at American University (yes, that is really its name) to improve and refine her craft (it's never too late to learn new things!) She also very much kept her ear in the wider Black art 'community', I would be here all day listing all the things she did up to 1960 but let me tell you it was a lot! All of this is what influenced her own art style late in her life.
So, in 1960 she retired from teaching at 68 and so became a full time artist. Her distinctive style was very much inspired by the Color Field Painting movement, focusing on large solid blocks of colour representing something abstract. Although she developed a more 'mosaic' like visual style to her pieces which I find makes them slightly dreamy looking despite the bold colours. She managed to achieve success in her lifetime (despite many things against her; her race, her gender and her age) with her work being shown at museums.
She continued painting well into her 80s and died in 1978 aged 86 in Washington D.C which had been her home for 70 years.
Why I chose her
I will say, I wanted to ensure that this year I chose a diverse range of artists so I looked up 'Black Female artists' online (I am ashamed to say that I didn't know of any before) and several of the listicles I found listed her with an example of her art. And I was just awestruck. Her art is just jawdropping, like you take a glance and you get such a strong impression of... something. I just knew that I HAD to study her!
Examples of her work
