WETA Arts February 2023: Alma Thomas

“Alma Thomas: Everything is Beautiful” is a city-wide series of programs and exhibits to honor Alma Thomas, which will continue through 2024. It’s spearheaded by the Phillips Collection and in conjunction with a major exhibit co-created by the Columbus Museum in Georgia and the Chrysler Museum of Art. The Phillips has a work from Alma Thomas’ Earth Series; check the Phillips’ website to see if it is on view. 

As part of the multi-institution event, the National Gallery of Art hosted a major conference on Thomas. Check out the recordings, including an introduction to the proceedings by Michele Obama. National Gallery has a number of Thomas works – check to see which are on view.

The Smithsonian American Art Museum has the most Alma Thomas works of any museum, as well as the portrait of Alma Thomas by Laura Wheeler Waring. To find out which are on display, contact the museum. As part of the multi-institution event, the museum is hosting an exhibit dedicated to her work starting September 15, 2023.

You can do your own primary source research about Alma Thomas, and other artists, through the resources provided by the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. Here you can hear artist interviews, see their photos, art, documents and letters, and even volunteer to make materials more findable by helping transcribe artists’ documents and letters.

Smithsonian Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, another host of programming related to the coordinated event, has a number of works by Thomas, as well as many works from other Washington Color School artists.

The National Museum of Women in the Arts is expected to reopen to the public in fall, 2023, but you can view its Alma Thomas works at at their website.