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Two years later, Thomas had resolved some stylistic ambiguities with modernism but passages of academicism, such as modeling, shading and spatial depth, remain evident as seen in [[italic]] Still Life with Chrysanthemums [[/italic]], 1954. The following year, the battle between representation and abstraction, heightened by the fusion of the background treatment with the figural element. Developed with thick, broad brush strokes of equal weight and intensity, the background and the figure are distinguished only by the juxtaposition of contrasting colors. Despite the Expressionist tenor articulated here, there is a stillness that characterizes the figure, rendering it static rather than animated or actively engaged. Although the palette is somber and dark, ranging from earth tones to dissonant shades of turquoise and gray, [[italic]] Study of a Young Gril [[/italic]] signals the colorist Thomas will become in a few short years.

[[italic]] Yellow and Blue [[/italic]], 1957, is actually vivid yellow, somber blue, sizzling red, bold black, and cool pink in Clyfford Still-like manner, a well known abstract expressionist painter in New York. The broad field of red is penetrated and punctuated by the alternate colors in the composition. Totally abstracted, Thomas presents color as pure optical sensation, richly saturated in an open field; no traces of a figure or identifiable object is apparent. For Thomas, the transition

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