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^[[3 (circled)]] ^[[Words of Alma]]
COMMENTS OF ALMA W. THOMAS
RENOWNED WASHINGTON COLOR ARTIST
In 1921 I enrolled in the Howard University Home & Economics Department, specializing in costume designing.  My instructor was Professor James V. Herring who recognized my artistic talents and advised me to enroll in the Howard University Art Department which he established in 1922.  He was the mentor who started and encouraged me in my art career.
Prf. Herring was a hondsome, dedicated man, endowed with great vision.  He laid the foundation for the development of Afro-Americans in the field of art. He was a great humanitarian who not only encouraged his gifted students, but also took a personal interest in their struggles to raise themselves above their handicaps.
One of the students in his Art History Course, Alonzo J. Aden, displayed unusal talents in recognizing worthy and creative works of art.  Teacher and student combined their talents and established an art gallery in the only space available, the first floor of the Howard University Chapel.  Encouraged by their success, Alonzo Aden took time time out to take special courses in museum management and made an intensive study tour through the world renowned European museums and small galleries. Some time after his return he and Prof. Herring established the Barnet Aden Gallery (named in honor of Alonzo's mother. Naomi Barnet Aden, their benefactor) at 127 Randolph Place, N.W., in the house in which they lived.  The theme of the enterprise was to educate the local community by showing how pa intings, sculpture and ceramics enriched the home.
However Prof. Herring never relinquished his teaching career and after his retirement was a visiting professor at a succession of colleges in the South.  He left the managements of the Gallery to Alonzo Aden who proved to be a most successful curator, and was the first to integrate the works f outstanding artists of that time, viz; Morris Louis, Kenneth Noland, Jacob Kainen, Romare Bearden, Merton Simpson, Rchard Dempsey, Jacob Lawrence and many more too numerous to mention.
Although Professor Herring and Alonzo Aden are now deceased, their influence is apparent in the art world of today.  Adolphus Ealey, coordinator of the arts in Washington, D.C. inherited most of their excellent collection and is now engaged in the prusuit of perpetuating it.