Renaissance prints at the National Gallery of Art

Daniel Hopfer, Hieronymus Hopfer, Emperor Charles V, 1520 (1521?), etching (iron) with open biting and unique contemporary hand-coloring in green, red, yellow, pink and brown, Purchased as the Gift of Ladislaus and Beatrix von Hoffmann, National Gallery of Art. Charles excommunicated Martin Luther (below) for his radical teachings. 

Albrecht Dürer, Saint Jerome Penitent in the Wilderness, c. 1496, engraving on laid paper, Joan and David Maxwell Fund, Pepita Milmore Memorial Fund and The Ahmanson Foundation, National Gallery of Art

If you missed the exhibition of Renaissance prints at the National Gallery of Art, here's a look at a few of them which held the most fascination for me.

The show celebrated NGA's recent acquisition of works by printmakers from Germany, Switzerland, and the Netherlands who drew religious and allegorical scenes, Martin Luther, Emperors Maximilian I and Charles V, and more.

I love allegory and its hidden messages which we don't see enough today.

This fellow who looks like he's wearing a chef's cap is Martin Luther, 1523, who, in the drawing, wears a monk's cowl and a theology professor's cap. The artist has framed his head with a halo. The Latin translates: Luther's figure will decay, his Christian spirit will never die. The label copy says the artist was Daniel Hopfer after Lucas Cranach the Elder, From the 

Ruth and Jacob Kainen Memorial Acquisition Fund, National Gallery of Art

 
Lucas van Doetechum, Johannes van Doetechum the Elder, Hans Vredeman de Vries, Hieronymus Cock, Perspective View of a Street, 1560, etching with engraving on laid paper, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund, National Gallery of Art. Since the four artists identified with Perspective are all Netherlandish, one suspects the street is Netherlandish, too, although its location is not listed. 

Jan Sadeler I, Joos van Winghe, A Pleasure House, 1588, engraving on laid paper, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund, National Gallery of Art.

Debauchery galore! See the woman on the right accepting money while she looks the other way at the man who's involved with another woman while simultaneously attempting to lure the first woman.  Harvey Weinstein in the 16th century!  Even the statue in the center contributes to the melee.  It's always the woman's fault.  The Latin inscription at the bottom reads: Wine and women will cause the wise to apostatize and he who joins in formication will be unrighteousness. My words! The devil enters at left to lead them to Hell's hinterland.  You better watch out; you better not cry.

Detail of A Pleasure House

Detail of A Pleasure House

Philip Galle after Pieter Bruegel the Elder, The Parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins, c. 1560-1563, Rosenwald Collection, National Gallery of Art. The label copy said we'd better prepare for Judgment Day. On the left five virgins ignore the enticements of the musician above to work on their handicraft and keep their lamps lit while awaiting the groom (Jesus Christ). The women on the right are sinful creatures who've given up their lamps to enjoy the bagpiper's music and dance. The Latin inscription at the bottom reads something like: We extinguish our lamps with your oil and it is not enough for us and you which means...? Keep the lamps lit (?)! Fascinating, whatever the meaning and intention. Something for the preachers to talk about on Sunday.

Hans Lützelburger, Master NH, Battle of Naked Men and Peasants, 1522, woodcut on laid paper, Ruth and Jacob Kainen Memorial Acquisition Fund, National Gallery of Art.  Lützelburger had been a blockcutter in Augsburg on several projects for Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I, and after the emperor died in 1519, Lützelburger made this sheet as an advertisement of his abilities as an artist of the human form. Note the amputated limbs at the bottom. While fierce battle ensues, see the calm discussion on the right. 

Detail of Battle of Naked Men and Peasants

The drawings depict national military prowess and moral messages, demonstrating popular themes and the leaders Northern European Renaissance artists of the 15th and 16th century drew for growing audiences.

The prints were relatively inexpensive and easy to transport for more to see and to buy.

In Pleasure House, alcohol loosens societal and personal constraints to allow excuses for the search for carnal pleasures! It's interesting to delve into them and find what you may.

The NGA's Brooks Rich, associate curator of old master prints, curated.

More examples of the works may be found at the link above. For personal viewing, you may enter titles and/or the artist's name at NGA's website to find their current locations at the Gallery.


What was: The Renaissance in the North: New Prints and Perspectives


When: The National Gallery hours are 10 a.m. - 5 p.m. daily.

Where: National Gallery of Art, 6th and Constitution, Washington

How much: Admission is always free at the National Gallery of Art.

Metro stations for the National Gallery of Art:
Smithsonian, Federal Triangle, Navy Memorial-Archives, or L'Enfant Plaza

For more information: (202) 737-4215

Accessibility information: (202) 842-6905

patricialesli@gmail.com 

The woman behind Whistler's 'woman in white' exhibition

James McNeill Whistler, Symphony in White, No. 1: The White Girl, 1861–1863, 1872, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Harris Whittemore Collection.  This work is one of the National Gallery's most famous and popular paintings.

At The Woman in White:  Joanna Hiffernan and James McNeill Whistler, National Gallery of Art/Photo by Patricia Leslie, June 29, 2022

For their first group appearance in the U.S., James McNeill Whistler's three "symphonies" of "women in white" are hanging out together in splendid fashion on a wall at the National Gallery of Art.

James McNeill Whistler, Symphony in White, No. 2: The Little White Girl, 1864, Tate, London, Bequeathed by Arthur Studd. Image: © Tate, London 2017.

James McNeill Whistler, Symphony in White, No. 3, 1865–1867, oil on canvas, The Henry Barber Trust, The Barber Institute of Fine Arts, The University of Birmingham, Bridgeman Images.

The women greet you as you enter the chambers to learn more about Joanna Hiffernan (1843-1886*), the gorgeous redhead, the "woman in white" who spawned countless other likenesses and whom James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903) painted time and time again. 

The pair are joined in a romantic tour of 60 paintings, drawings, prints, documents and letters linking the female subject and the artist who were a twosome for more than 20 years. 

James McNeill Whistler, Wapping, 1860-1864, National Gallery of Art, Washington, John Hay Whitney Collection.

Gustave Courbet, Jo, la belle Irlandaise, 1865–1866, oil on canvas, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, H. O. Havemeyer Collection.

The lady played key roles in Whistler's life, and it was to her that Whistler left his estate and gave her power of attorney. And the National Gallery's show has got the papers on display to prove it!

This is the first exhibition "to delve deeply" in their relationship and offer explanations, wrote Kaywin Feldman, director, the National Gallery of Art, in a press statement.

Alas, Hiffernan died 17 years before Whistler, and his estate was left to his sister-in-law.  

At The Woman in White:  Joanna Hiffernan and James McNeill Whistler, National Gallery of Art/Photo by Patricia Leslie, June 29, 2022

At the opening of The Woman in White:  Joanna Hiffernan and James McNeill Whistler, National Gallery of Art/Photo by Patricia Leslie, June 29, 2022

Behind the enchanting show which reveals some of the mystery of the glamorous woman in white, are the credentials of Dr. Margaret MacDonald, a world renowned Whistler authority who came over from Scotland for the National Gallery's opening and delivered a public lecture.

Dr. MacDonald is professor emerita of art history at the University of Glascow, and I was lucky enough to interview her. She's about as charming as I would imagine Ms. Hiffernan to be.

Dr. Margaret MacDonald, professor emerita of art history, Glasgow University, with Whistler's Wapping, 1860-1864, National Gallery of Art, John Hay Whitney Collection/Photo by Patricia Leslie, June 29, 2022

While we sat on a bench at the National Gallery with the three ladies in white behind us, the professor told me a bit about her Whistler background.

She became interested in the American expatriate when she spotted a job posting for a university research assistant, and she laughed. 

"Many years ago I needed a job and was in Glasgow doing teacher training, actually, and a job came up" duties which included working on Whistler's 7,000 letters. 

"And I thought that sounds interesting.  So I read a book on Whistler and got the job!" and she laughed again.

The job was a one-year contract which lasted 12 years. (Rather like some federal contractor jobs in Washington, D.C. which sometimes extend into the next century.)

"One thing led to another over the years, another good project; some good ideas," and the work is ongoing with "a helluva big collection; it's a wonderful collection" with always things to do.

"We're still finding out more, as you can imagine," Dr. MacDonald said.

In Whistler's paintings, Hiffernan appears as a quiet, acquiescent  partner, with shimmering red hair touched by a golden halo.  

No one knows for sure how they met, according to Dr. MacDonald, but "we guess."  It was 1860.

"She was living with her sister near the British Museum in London" where there were many shops selling artists' materials. 

"Some models lived near there so it depends whether he was looking for a model. She could have been in a shop when he was there, buying paints.  We don't exactly know."

But Ms. Hiffernan was a model who was not confined to Whistler. She also modeled for Gustave Courbet (1819-1877) some of whose works of her are in the exhibition.  

In the 19th century, models were often associated with prostitutes, but she was not a prostitute, Dr. MacDonald is sure.

"She may have looked like one. Because she was a model, she was not considered as respectable." 

"Hiffernan died young [of bronchitis]. Everything changed when she died." 

Whistler later married the artist Beatrice Godwin whose family may become a future exhibition by some of Dr. MacDonald's colleagues. 

Not too long ago, Hiffernan's great-great-grand-niece contacted Dr. MacDonald who showed me a picture of the niece who bore a remarkable resemblance to her great-great-grand-aunt Joanna.

Dr. MacDonald said it was about 2014 whe she "probably began talking to Charlie" [Brock, associate curator, department of American and British paintings, National Gallery of Art] about the current show, and "he says about six years ago we seriously began [work] and began to make a list."

The famous Symphony in White, No 1: The White Girl, 1861-1863, 1872, the centerpiece of the exhibition, portrays Hiffernan standing on a bear skin on a Japanese rug. 

What is the meaning of the bear? 

"At the time," Dr. MacDonald said, "nobody mentioned the bear."

Why did Whistler paint Hiffernan in white?

It "showed off her red hair.  Very appealing and white is purity."

Dr. MacDonald pointed out that in Hiffernan is holding an orange blossom, which symbolized marriage, but Ms. Hiffernan never married.

Why is she wearing a wedding ring?

 

"She looks respectable. Or, maybe she wore it for a while.  There might have been objections from both families." It is not known if they wanted to get  married. 

 If Joanna was going to be at dinner, Whistler's brother-in-law would refuse to come. 

No one knows where Hiffernan is buried although many have searched, Dr. MacDonald said. 

A recognized world authority on Whistler, Dr. MacDonald is the author of several Whistler books and articles, including the stunning book for this exhibition with 232 pages of the couple's story, history, controversies, and plates, many in color ($50 in the museum shops).  

At Encyclopedia. com, Dr. MacDonald's web listing has drawn almost four million views.

I think the Hiffernan-Whistler (Courbet?) affair would make a marvelous movie, along the lines of The Girl With A Pearl Earring (Vermeer).  

Dr. MacDonald: Do you write screenplays, too?

*For a Wikipedia mistake about Hiffernan's death date, Dr. MacDonald wrote me:  "The book/catalogue spells this out. Her death certificate is beyond doubt and gives bronchitis and 1886, and it’s registered by her sister Agnes. And it would have been Agnes Hiffernan (by then Mrs Singleton) who accompanied Whistler’s son to his funeral in 1903 and was mistakenly identified as her sister Joanna, leading to the 1903 misinformation."

Ann Dumas of the Royal Academy of Arts, London, and Dr. Brock were co-curators.

The National Gallery will host free Whistler-Hiffernan talks and a concert inspired by Woman in White on the following:

Saturday, Sept. 17 at 12:00 p.m. with Eric Denker

and

Friday, Sept. 23 at 1:00 p.m. with David Gariff

Sunday, Oct. 2, 2022, 3 - 4:20 p.m. The  U.S. Army Band Chamber Players will play compositions by Chopin, Debussy, Takemitsu, and Beach. (Required registration for the concert begins Sept. 23, 2022 at 12 p.m.) 

Thank you to the Terra Foundation for American Art for helping make the exhibition and the book possible. 

What:  The Woman in White: Joanna Hiffernan and James McNeill Whistler

When: Now through Oct. 10, 2022, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Where: East Building Mezzanine, National Gallery of Art, Washington

How much: Admission is always free at the National Gallery of Art.

Metro stations for the National Gallery of Art:
Smithsonian, Federal Triangle, Navy Memorial-Archives, or L'Enfant Plaza

For more information: (202) 737-4215

Accessibility information: (202) 842-6905

patricialesli@gmail.com

Rush to see 'Afro-Atlantic Histories' before they close Sunday!

Kaywin Feldman, director of the National Gallery of Art, welcomes visitors to Afro-Atlantic Histories, April 5, 2022/Photo by Patricia Leslie

You may thank me later for steering you to this outstanding show, if you have not been or, if like me, you go again.

Honestly, my second visit to the National Gallery of Art: Afro-Atlantic Histories made more of an impression with the size, scope, and contents covering the 17th to 21st centuries and spanning four continents, than my first time there.

More than 130 works are represented in graphic stories of Blacks and their histories from all sides of the Atlantic.  It is  astonishing and one of those exhibitions I wish would never end, but it's soon moving to Los Angeles.

The show has something for all and will open eyes wide, no matter how much education you have or think you have.

George Morland, European Ship Wrecked on the Coast of Africa, known as African Hospitality, 1789, oil on canvas, The Menil Collection, Houston 

Emanoel Araujo, O navio [The Ship], 2007, polychromed wood and carbon steel, Collection Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand, gift of the artist

James Phillips, Description of a slave ship, 1789, woodcut, Rare Books, Department of Special Collections, Princeton University Library. 

Description of a slave ship is really too small to see here so you must visit the exhibition and see it firsthand. Each of the 600 prisoners aboard the ship, the Brooks, had a 16-inch space for two months, the time it took to sail the Atlantic, bound for the West Indies from Britain, according to the label copy.  Mr. Phillips, a fervent abolitionist, printed more than 8,000 copies of this plan. Britain outlawed slavery in 1807 but it wasn't until 1833 that slavery was abolished in the British colonies.  Read more about it here and figure the size of 16 inches. 

Johann Moritz Rugendas, Slaves in the Cargo Hold of a Slave Ship (detail), c. 1835, lithograph with watercolor, Instituto Ricardo Brennand, Recife, Pernambuci, Brazil

Kerry James Marshall, Voyager (detail), 1992, acrylic and collage on canvas, National Gallery of Art, Corcoran Collection (Gift of the Women’s Committee of the Corcoran Gallery of Art) © Kerry James Marshall

The National Gallery of Art hosted an exhibition of Mr. Marshall's works in 2013 which you may read about here and see him there. 

Nona Faustine, From her body sprang their greatest wealth, 2013, photographic print, artist's collection

The photographer, shown above, wants to make a statement, according to label copy, that it wasn't just in the South where slavery was practiced but on this Wall Street spot, the first place in New York City where slaves were bought and sold for more than 50 years in the 18th century. Like many others who were trafficked, purchased and handed down to heirs, Ms. Faustine pictures herself nude as a reminder of life for the enslaved.

John Philip Simpson, The Captive Slave, 1827, oil on canvas, The Art Institute of Chicago, purchased with funds provided by Mary Winton Green, Dan and Sara Green Cohan, Howard and Lisa Green and Jonathan and Brenda Green, in memory of David Green

Samuel Raven, Celebrating the Emancipation of Slaves in British Dominions, August, 1834, oil on canvas, The Menil Collection, Houston

Ernest Crichlow, Harriet Tubman, 1953, oil on masonite, courtesy of Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, LLC, New York

Wikipedia says Ms. Tubman (1822–1913) was an American abolitionist and social activist who was born into slavery. After she escaped slavery twice in 1849, Tubman made some 13 missions to rescue approximately 70 enslaved people using the network of antislavery activists and safe houses known as the "Underground Railroad." 

During the Civil War, she was a cook, a nurse, an armed scout and spy for the Union Army and was the first woman to lead an armed expedition in the war. 

In her later years, Tubman was an activist in the movement for women's suffrage. She met John Brown in 1858 and helped him plan and recruit supporters for his 1859 raid on Harpers Ferry. 

Last year President Joe Biden resumed the effort to have Ms. Tubman’s likeness placed on the $20 bill to replace that of President Andrew Jackson, action the Trump administration had blocked.

John Adam Houston, The Fugitive Slave (detail), 1853, oil on canvas, The Johnson Collection, Spartanburg, SC. One of my favorites in the exhibition. 

This is only a portion of the painting and does not show the star directly above the escaped slave, similar to the Star of Bethlehem on the night the Three Wise Men visited the Baby Jesus.  Mr. Houston lived from 1812-1884 primarily in Edinburgh and London and likely never visited the U.S. but the Johnson Collection says he may have been inspired "by the poem written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in 1842, The Slave in the Dismal Swamp, and by Harriet Beecher Stowe’s 1852 novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin."  You can see the star at the John Adam Houston link above or at the exhibition.  Look at these colors!

Lois Mailou Jones, The Green Door (detail), 1981, watercolor over graphite, National Gallery of Art, Corcoran Collection Museum Purchase, William A. Clark Fund

William Walker, Noon Day Pause in the Cotton Field, c.1885 oil on canvas, The Johnson Collection, Spartanburg, SC

Archibald John Motley Jr., Nightlife (detail), 1943, oil on canvas, The Art Institute of Chicago, purchased with funds provided by Mr. and Mrs. Marshall Field, Jack and Sandra Guthman, Ben W. Heineman, Ruth Horwich, Lewis and Susan Manilow, Beatrice C. Mayer, Charles A. Meyer, John D. Nichols,  and Mr. and Mrs. E.B. Smith Jr.; James W. Alsdorf Memorial Fund; Goodman Endowment.

I see this and want to get up and dance!  They are having so much fun!  It makes me happy.  A large painting, full of life and vigor which tell me that life's moments  pass too quickly, and we must seize opportunities to get up and dance and carpe diem!

Eugène Delacroix, Portrait of a Woman in a Blue Turban, c. 1827, oil on canvas, Dallas Museum of Art, The Eugene and Margaret McDermott Art Fund, Inc., in honor of Patricia McBride

Osmond Watson, Johnny Cool, 1967, oil on canvas, National Gallery of Jamaica

He's a cool cat, isn't he?  You don't need to look at the title of this work to know he's one cool dude, or almost that with that slouched position and arm swung over the chair, but, wait!  After a closer look, his eyes seem to lose their confidence and his posture undermines his original cockiness. Even on canvas, the painting changes.  Now, how does this artist do this?  That's one cool artist!

Daniel Lind-Ramos, Figura de Poder (Power Figure), 2016-2018, mirrors, concrete blocks, cement bag, sledgehammer, construction stones bag, paint bucket, wood panels, palm tree trunk, burlap, leather, ropes, sequin, awning, plastic ropes, fabric, trumpet, pins, duct tape, maracas, sneaker, tambourine, working gloves, basketballs, boxing gloves, acrylic overall, National Gallery of Art, New Century Fund

What's there to say except it's big and full of meaning which is...?

Alma Thomas, March on Washington (detail), 1964, acrylic on canvas, courtesy of Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, LLC, New York.

The painting above was recently on view at Washington's Phillips Collection which hosted an exhibition of Ms. Thomas's works, Everything is Beautiful. The artist (1892-1978) became a lifelong resident of Washington after moving here with her family from Columbus, Georgia where her father thought the environment was not the best for his family. 

This painting was an outlier in Ms. Thomas's portfolio since she usually drew abstracts of non-political suasion, but for the March on Washington, Ms. Thomas put brush to canvas to capture a moment when Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, galvanizing his supporters and the artist, too.

A morning in spring at the National Gallery of Art/Photo by Patricia Leslie, April 5, 2022

Afro-Atlantic Histories is adopted from a much larger show from 2018 (on which the catalog is based) presented at the Museu de Arte de São Paulo and the Instituto Tomie Ohtake, São Paulo. The latter was the 2014 site of the origin of the 2018 show in a presentation called Histories of Slavery.


A Brazilian team curated Afro-Atlantic Histories, which is fitting, the essayists note in the catalog, given that Brazil, for more than 300 years, received about 40 percent of Africans forcibly removed from their homes, and today has the second-highest population of Blacks in the world, after Nigeria.


Included above are the portraits, paintings, photographs, sculptures which I found most intriguing, but there are many, many more to whet appetites for learning and see Black history and culture come to life.


The label copy is in Engish and Spanish.


And the catalog! Oh, my! Published by Museu de Arte de São Paulo, it has 400 pages in color of 400 works by 200 artists ($69.95). Not to miss and see and read time and time again.


And don't forget Artle! It's lots of fun!

In conjunction with the exhibition, movies by international filmmakers will be presented at no charge through July 17 in the West Building Lecture Hall. Registration is required at nga.gov/film. Go here for more information.


From Washington, the exhibition moves to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, December 11, 2022–April 30, 2023, and next to the Dallas Museum of Art with dates to be announced.


Afro-Atlantic Histories was organized by the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and the Museu de Arte de Sāo Paulo in collaboration with the National Gallery of Art.

What: Afro-Atlantic Histories

When: Now through July 17, 2022, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Where: Main floor of the West Building, National Gallery of Art, Washington

How much: Admission is always free at the National Gallery of Art.

Metro stations for the National Gallery of Art:
Smithsonian, Federal Triangle, Navy Memorial-Archives, or L'Enfant Plaza

For more information: (202) 737-4215

Accessibility information: (202) 842-6905

patricialesli@gmail.com

A final week to see Baltimore's guard art

At Guarding the Art, Baltimore Museum of Art

The catalogue* ($22.95) may be sold out, but the show of artworks selected by museum guards is still available through July 10 at the free Baltimore Museum of Art.

Art enthusiasts, young and old, will find this a delightful and fascinating exhibition with its enormous versatility, outstanding color, and just plain intrigue.

AtGuarding the Art, Baltimore Museum of Art

At Guarding the Art, Baltimore Museum of Art

From BMA's vast collection of 95,000 works of traditional and modern paintings, sculptures, and much more, the museum's security guards chose the works they wanted to display in this special exhibition. 

Security members helped produce the whole show, from curating to marketing, research, the catalogue, public programs and more. 

At Guarding the Art, Baltimore Museum of Art

Why was this one included?  The guards explain their choices.

Consider the difficulty of choosing just one, two or three pieces of art to show! A hard task, indeed!  

The museum says all members of the security guard staff were invited to participate and 17 decided to go the the full mile, all whose biographies are included in the catalogue and here. 

The guards have varied occupations:  They are artists, chefs, musicians, philosophers, singers, poets, composers, scholars (including a college art instructor), writers, and much more.  

BMA says the idea grew from discussions by the museum's professional staff and a trustee seeking "ways to fulfill the Museum’s commitment to be more diverse, more inclusive, and more representative of the community it serves."

For time off from their jobs for this endeavor, each guard was compensated by funds from a lead grant from the Pearlstone Family Foundation. 

Guard curators are Traci Archable-Frederick, Jess Bither, Ben Bjork, Ricardo Castro, Melissa Clasing, Bret Click, Alex Dicken, Kellen Johnson, Michael Jones, Rob Kempton, Chris Koo, Alex Lei, Dominic Mallari, Dereck Mangus, Sara Ruark, Joan Smith, and Elise Tensley.

The exhibition has drawn phenomenal press coverage and will, no doubt, serve as inspiration to other museums. BMA:  Leading the Way!   

*Reprints likely

What: Guarding the Art 

When: Wednesday - Sunday, 10 a.m. - 5 p.m. with Thursday evening hours until 9 p.m., now through July 10, 2022.

Where: Baltimore Museum of Art,  10 Art Museum Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218

How much:  It's free! 

Getting there: From Washington, D.C., it's an easy, comfortable, and economical one-hour ride on the MARC train. Plenty of departures. Once at the Baltimore Penn Station, take the free Circulator shuttle north up Charles Street, get off at 31st and walk up the short hill. Directions and parking. 

Reservations and masks are not required (but, for the latter: optional and encouraged). 

For more information, call: (443) 573-1700
TDD: (410) 396-4930 and/or visit artbma.org.

patricialesli@gmail.com

'Alma Thomas' leaving The Phillips Sunday

     

Laura Wheeler Waring (1887-1948), Portrait of Alma Thomas, ca. 1945, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Vincent Melzac.  The Smithsonian's label differs from the one at the Phillips whose label copy says the title is Portrait of a Lady, painted in 1947.  Two different paintings?  They look the same.  You decide!

Alma W. Thomas, Grandfather's House, 1952, The Columbus Museum, gift of Miss John Maurice Thomas, Alma Thomas's sister.

Alma W. Thomas, Orangery, 1973, Newark Museum of Art, gift of Harold Hart. The label copy says Alma Thomas's student, Harold Hart, tended her yard and exhibited her works in New York when he was director of the Martha Jackson Gallery.  The title may refer to Dumbarton Oaks in Washington which Ms. Thomas often visited and/or Claude Monet's paintings she saw when she visited the Musée de l'Orangerie in Paris. 

Visitors at Everything is Beautiful at The Phillips/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Alma W. Thomas, Red Roses Sonata (detail), 1972, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, gift of Longview Foundation, Inc. Ms. Thomas attended concerts at The Phillips and credited rock and roll with many of her titles.

Alma W. Thomas, Mars Reflection (detail),  1972, The CIA. Ms. Thomas found inspiration in a dust storm on Mars which, in 1971, delayed images from a U.S. spacecraft, the first to orbit another planet besides Earth.

Elka M. Stevens (b. 1968), re-creation of the dress designed by Maceo E. McCray for Alma Thomas's Fisk University and Whitney Museum exhibition openings, loaned by The Columbus Museum/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Alma Thomas, Christmas Menu, U.S. Veterans Hospital, Tuskegee, AL, 1935. Ms. Thomas's mother and aunts taught at or graduated from Tuskegee. Ms. Thomas's students made holiday cards for patients at the hospital. 

Alma W. Thomas, Historical Costume Studies, 1922, The Columbus Museum, gift of Miss John Maurice Thomas, in memory of her parents and sister, Alma Thomas. The label copy says Alma Thomas learned clothing design from her mother, a professional seamstress.  At Howard University, Alma Thomas enrolled in the Department of Home Economics but was guided to the new fine arts department by a professor.

Alma W. Thomas, They Laid Him in the Tomb, c. 1958, Paolo Luptak

Alma W. Thomas, Sketch for March on Washington, c. 1963 or 1964 (depending upon the source), The Columbus Museum, gift of Miss John Maurice Thomas, in memory of her parents and sister, Alma Thomas. Although Alma Thomas seldom participated in political movements, she marched on August 28, 1963 with her sister and thousands of others, including Josephine Baker, Lena Horne, and Paul Newman. A detail of this painting became a U.S. postage stamp in 2005.

Alma Thomas's home at 1530 15th Street, NW, Washington, DC, now on the National Register of Historic Places. An earlier occupant was Rosetta Douglass-Sprague, daughter of Frederick Douglass/photo by Kurt Kaiser, March 10, 2020, Wikimedia  

The dress on the left is a recreation of Alma Thomas's house dress made by Elka M. Stevens (b. 1968) loaned by The Columbus Museum/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Whoa!

For those who think it's too late, those do not know about Alma Thomas, DC celebrated artist extraordinaire who didn't really get her start until her 70s, after she retired from 35* years of teaching which then gave her time to "blossom."

Which she did at her own home, gazing outside her windows to see magnificent gifts of nature presented in dazzling array which often became part of her paintings which evolved into astonishing vertical lines of bright colors.

Her vehicle to happiness, she said, was color which is where her works take viewers.

Said Ms. Thomas: "Through color I have sought to concentrate on beauty and happiness in my painting rather than on man's inhumanity to man....Color is life, and light is the mother of color."

Alma Thomas (1891-1978) was an abstractionist who enjoyed many firsts: At age 81, she became the first black woman to enjoy a solo exhibition at the Whitney Museum of America Art; she was the first fine arts  graduate at Howard University.

She never abandoned learning, earning a master's from Columbia University and traveling to larger cities and museums to absorb their sights and treasures. 

After her retirement, she made her art debut at Howard in 1966 and at age 75, her career took off.

She was born in Columbus, Georgia but moved to Washington with her family when she was 16, to a house where Ms. Thomas lived the rest of her life (and is now on the National Register of Historic Places). 

Like springtime's bouquet which inspired her, Ms. Thomas brings us the same stimulating colors and bright canvases to the Phillips Collection exhibition in contrast with the dark and cold winter.

Read the labels and learn that the show is much more than art:  It sheds light on the many achievements by Ms. Thomas who resisted being categorized as a "black" or a "woman" artist.  Let art stand on its own, she said. Note how her styles changed over the years.

In a private transaction last year, Wikipedia says her painting Alma's Flower Garden sold for $2.8 million.  You  don't have to be a youngster or a rich world traveler to claim success: You just have to keep up with what you love to do!  

You see what art can do!

I don't know anyone who thinks the show is anything less than fantastic.  

*(or 38, depending upon the source) 

What: Alma W. Thomas:  Everything is Beautiful

When: Through Sunday, January 23, 2022, 11 a.m. - 6 p.m.

Where: The Phillips Collection, 1600 21st St., N.W. at Q St., Washington, D.C. 20009

Admission: $16, adults; $12 for those over 62; $10, students and educators (with ID); free for members and for children 18 and under. Timed tickets are required, but members may walk in at any time. Visitors 12 and over must show proof of vaccination or a same-day negative COVID-19 test upon entry, along with a government-issued photo ID for visitors 16 and over.

Metro Station: Dupont Circle (Q Street exit. Turn left and walk one block.)

For more information: 202-387-2151


Patricialesli@gmail.com