The Multidimensional Creativity of Alma W. Thomas Major Exhibition and Catalogue Arrive at the Columbus Museum
Renowned artist Alma W. Thomas’ (1891-1978) artistic journey took her from Columbus, Georgia, to international acclaim. The traveling exhibition Alma W. Thomas: Everything Is Beautiful offers a comprehensive overview of her extraordinary career with more than 150 objects, including late-career paintings that have never before been exhibited or published. The exhibition debuted at the Chrysler Museum of Art in Norfolk, Virginia, and visited The Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C. and the Frist Art Museum in Nashville, Tennessee before it closes at The Columbus Museum in Columbus, Georgia, July 1-Sept. 25, 2022. The exhibition is co-organized by the Chrysler Museum of Art and The Columbus Museum. The exhibition is co-curated by Jonathan Frederick Walz, Ph.D., Director of Curatorial Affairs and Curator of American Art at The Columbus Museum, and Seth Feman, Ph.D., the Chrysler’s former Deputy Director for Art and Interpretation and Curator of Photography. Alma W. Thomas: Everything Is Beautiful will demonstrate how Thomas’ artistic practices extended to every facet of her life, from community service and teaching to
gardening and dress. Unlike a traditional retrospective, the exhibition is organized around multiple themes from Thomas’ life and career. These themes include the context of her Washington Color School cohort, the creative communities connected to her time at Howard University, and the protests against museums that failed to represent women and artists of color. This exhibition, as well as its published catalogue, includes a wide range of artworks and archival materials that reveal Thomas’ complex and deliberate artistic existence before, during and after the years of her mature output and career-making solo show at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1972. She was the first African American woman to have a solo show at the famed New York institution. “It’s hard to overstate the importance of the Whitney show to Thomas’ career,” said Feman, now Executive Director and CEO of the Frist Art Museum. “Yet the Whitney show wasn’t the be-all, end-all it is often made out to be. Thomas worked persistently to establish a successful artistic career in the decades leading up to 37
