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INTRODUCTION

In the one-woman show of Alma Thomas earlier this year at the Whitney Museum, which brought her to national attention, it was immediately evident that a big spirit was at work. It was not a simple spirit. The artist could be gay, but she could also summon up feelings of grandeur and limitless aspiration. The breadth of outlook was matched by the complexity of organization.

Alma Thomas is far from the merely intuitive colorist some critics, in their enchantment with her bold attack, felicitous color and seeming spontaneity have been led to believe. No stigma can be attached to being intuitive in any art sense, of course, except for the fact that this approach doesn't apply to Miss Thomas. The zestful laying on of colors, the lack of concern for neatness of execution and the fiery originality of color relationships are the result of artistic maturity which concentrates particularly on effectiveness of communication.

Behind her free, nonchalant handling is twenty years of discipline, beginning with solid still-life painting for some years at American University with Ben (Joe) Summerford and for shorter periods with Robert F. Gates and Sarah Baker. For a semester around 1957 when I did a brief stint at the University and when she was beginning her darkly lyrical abstract style, Alma Thomas worked with me, and we would discuss her work occasionally in the mid-1960's.

From the late 1950's through the early 1960's Miss Thomas continued her deep-toned abstractions, predominantly blue, ragged, heavily worked and exhaling a feeling of torment. By 1959 the abstrations had become simplified (the Blue Abstraction paintings, for example) and misty, moody dark blue shapes punctuated by touches of red-gold and ochre were set against spacious light backgrounds. Abstract Expressionism flourished in those days and while her work wasn't strictly in that style-the shapes were too clearly defined-it conveyed something of the same sense of personal isolation.

Around the mid-1950's Miss Thomas began her decisive move into purer color formations. It was at that time, also, that she was particularly productive as a watercolorist, and it is likely that the necessity of freshness and spontaneity in the lighter medium, the slight forcing of color values it involved, and the inescapable presence of the white paper led her to adopt acrylics in place of oils and to commit herself more firmly to the path of brighter color and a higher key. But she needed a new subject to replace the anguished forms and dark range of colors she had previously used. Miss Thomas found the new subject by using her eyes and discovering elemental nature-the flowers in her garden and in the National Arboretum, the changing light of the seasons and the flux and variety of growing things. It might have been the other way around: the purity and glowing intensity of the flowers with their incredible range of colors may have supplied the initial motivation. In either case the revelation of the spiritual renewal to be found in living nature coincided with the artist's decision to use color and design in a more disciplined way, and the Earth Series was born.

The painting in this series are a landmark in Washington painting. The systematic color structure, the mosaic formation of the images point in a fresh direction. Yet the outlook is rooted in the long history of art going back to Cyclopean walls.

On the occasion of her retrospective at Howard University in 1966. I described Miss Thomas as "the Signac of current color painters." Her short bars of color, assembled in