Alma Thomas
The Hirshhorn has some of the Alma Thomas paintings in its collection currently on exhibition.
Thomas, who lived most of her life (and taught art to children for many years) in DC, didn't even have her first solo show until she was 68 years old, and still managed to fit in retrospectives at the Corcoran Gallery of Art and what was then called the National Museum of American Art, and then became the first African American woman to have a solo show at the Whitney Museum of American Art in NYC.
She died in 1978, and many of the Thomas' paintings in the Hirshhorn collection were gifted to the museum after her death.
I find it a little curious that the Hirshhorn has eight Thomas in its collection, but only one Lois Mailou Jones, who was one of Thomas' professors at Howard (Thomas was Howard's first Art Department graduate in 1924).
Jones died in 1998. Time for some more gifts to the Hirsh...
Thursday, May 25, 2006
Lecture
Next week, on Wed. June 7, 2006, at 12 noon, Michelle Greet, Assistant Professor of Art History, George Mason University will deliver a slide lecture titled "From Matta to Gego: Modes of Abstraction in Latin America" at the Art Museum of the Americas, a truly gorgeous, and often ignored, art space in our region.
Free and open to the public!
We have them too
An alert DC Art News reader points out that in the WaPo's District Extra, there is an article about how Michael A. Brown is getting political endorsements for his DC mayoral campaign in places outside the DC area.
So what's this story got to to do with the visual arts?
Apparently Brown was in Atlanta to raise funds for his campaign, which he last reported in March as having less than $12,000 in cash. Andrew Young endorsed him in front of a crowd of about 150 who paid $100 to attend a reception at an African American-owned art gallery.
Now this is something that has never happened in DC... or has it?
And what is it with WaPo's writers and their "generalizing" of art galleries or museums (describing them as "an art gallery" or in Big Al Carter's article, as "an art museum"), rather than telling their readers the name of that art gallery in Atlanta? Had it been a defense contractor, or any other business, we'd know immediately who it was.
And Mr. Brown, if you need to pick up some endorsements in our area, and need an excellent African-American owned art gallery to host the event, we have them too! I'll even tell you the name of some of them.
