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THE WASHINGTON POST
C2 Saturday, Sept. 9, 1972

Art

Corcoran: A Little Art for Everyone

CORCORAN, From C1

surfaces, like those seen in cloud chambers, are not just static lines. They seem to indicate that something of great energy has at vast speed just zoomed by. The lizards, birds and turtles he so incongruously adds evoke ungraspable associations that zap the viewer's mind. Woehrman lives in Cleveland, but once local dealers see his work we should see lots of it around.

Julian Stanczak is a first-rate artist, confident, accomplished. He never seems to stumble. Using the simplest of means - parallel lines, planes shown in perspective, discs - he constructs ordered images that seem to glow with life.

Stanczk, who was born in Poland in 1928, lived in Uganda and in London before coming to this country more than 20 years ago. He studied with Josef Albers at Yale in the mid-'50s, and something of Albers' art is apparent in his work. While visiting his show some visitors may be reminded of England's Bridget Riley and Anuszkiewciz, but these comparisons are tenuous. 

He does not rely, as heavily as Riley does, on optical effects, and unlike the most famous Albers he works in space with other tools than color. The "things" in Stanczak's work, the curving surfaces, the bulges and the cubes, seem somehow insubstantial, as if they've been dematerialized. His is a handsome show. 

One gallery at the Corcoran is devoted to the work of three younger local artists. David Stephens, who shows at Jefferson Place and has exhibited at the Corcoran before, is represented here by a glistening, somber wall-hung work of painted canvas and transparent plastic. David Staton, who has also shown at Jefferson Place, who regards his works as "pieces of the outside...pieces of the land itself," is exhibiting a floor piece made of shingles and a heavy timber and upright slabs of stone.

The nicely fuzzy, well-considered paintings on the walls are by Washington's Gordon Riggle. He's a landscape architect. I liked his work and was amazed to find that he began painting less than a year ago.

Also at the Corcoran is an exhibition of large ceramic pieces by Turker Ozdogan, who has worked at the Corcoran School of Art and who received a master's degree from George Washington University in May. His giant useless pots reminded me of the equally nonfunctional ceramics included in the Corcoran's Russian show. You can't win them all.

But the Corcoran is trying. It has begun the season with a fistful of exhibitions. Their quality varies widely, but under Gene Baro, the Corcoran's new director, the gallery appears to be alive again.

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By Gerald Martineau - The Washington Post
Alma Thomas received tributes and roses last night during a party in her honor at the Corcoran.

"She didn't really want a party for fear of spilling something on her special long red silk dress on her special day. That's Alma Thomas."

Alma Thomas: Cheery Artist

THOMAS, From C1

used by friend to describe this black woman who taught art at Shaw Junior High School for 35 years and was the first to graduate from Howard University's art school in 1924.

Born in Columbus, Ga., but a Washingtonian for most of her 77 years, Miss Thomas received national recognition last spring with her first solo musuem exhibit, at the Whitney Museum in New York.

Now don't let it be said that Washington doesn't recognize its own. Miss Thomas has been exhibiting locally since 1954 after beginning her painting career at age 55.

It is not hard to see, either, why art gallery owner Franz Bader has taken her under his wing. "Her work is honesty, perfect poetry. And as a person - oh- rare. Like good old wine. The older she gets the more beautiful she gets," gushed Bader, her friend for 30 years.

Or why city councilman Sterling Tucker, American University art teacher Bob Gate and prominent lawyer-politician Pat Harris swarmed around the petite artist.

"Hi Sugar. I'm only dreaming, aren't I? It's like I'm in some fairyland," Miss Thomas said happily, reaching out and planting big kisses on the perfumed and powdered cheeks offered, while waltzing through the Corcoran on the arm of museum chief executive officer Vincent Melzac.

There were black and white Washington socialites in colorful formal finery and artists in costumery creations rivaling Joseph's coat of many colors. Their chatter drowned out the small group of chamber musicians.

Miss Thomas' work seems to reflect the warmth and love her friends see in the person.

Her use of colors, her acute awareness of nature and her bubbly perspective of life keeps art critics chirping, "happy" and "zestful" and "carefree."

Perhaps her young and happy view has been preserved by the children she taught for so long in school and in her neighborhood. She has lived in the same house at 1530 16th St. NW since coming to the city as a little girl, resisting the migration to the suburbs by many blacks so she could stay near the children she loves.

"Who's going to uplift them if people like me don't?" she has said many times, and that is why she was Washington's queen for a day. 

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