Major Retrospective of Alma W. Thomas at Frist Art Museum Examines Artist's Wide-Ranging Creative Life

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (January 4, 2021) —The Frist Art Museum presents Alma W. Thomas: Everything Is Beautiful, a comprehensive overview of the artist’s long, dynamic life (1891–1978) and multifaceted career that was defined by constant creativity. Featuring more than 150 works, including her joyful and colorful abstract paintings and many objects that have never been exhibited or published before, the exhibition demonstrates how Thomas’s artistic practices extended to every aspect of her life—from community service and teaching to gardening and dress. Co-organized by the Chrysler Museum of Art and The Columbus Museum, Georgia, Everything Is Beautiful will be on view in the Frist’s Upper-Level Galleries from February 25 through June 5, 2022.

This major retrospective follows the trailblazing artist’s journey from Columbus, Georgia, to Washington, DC, to becoming the first Black woman to have a solo show at New York’s Whitney Museum of American Art in 1972, when she was eighty years old. It includes thirty-eight canvases spanning 1922–77, more than sixty works on paper, four marionettes, and a range of sculptures, photographs, and ephemera. 

“Everything Is Beautiful not only provides a more complex understanding of Alma Thomas, but also offers an inspiring example of how to lead a creative life today,” says Seth Feman, PhD, one of the exhibition’s curators and the Chrysler’s deputy director for art and interpretation and curator of photography. He notes that, while Thomas has been long adored by collectors and scholars, her talent remained unfamiliar to a wider public for more than three decades after her death until 2009, when President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama included her work among the paintings they installed at the White House.

“Thomas achieved artworld stardom but considered teaching art to be her greatest legacy,” says Frist Art Museum senior curator Trinita Kennedy. The Frist will highlight Thomas’s thirty-five-year tenure at Shaw Junior High in Washington, DC, by presenting a concurrent exhibition titled Nashville Art Teachers: Beyond the Classroom that salutes the extraordinary art teachers in our own community and their heroic efforts during the challenging circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic. It features the work of elementary, middle, and high school art teachers working in Davidson County and will be on view in the Conte Community Arts Gallery from March 4 through August 28, 2022.

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Program

Thursday, February 24
Curators’ Perspective
Alma W. Thomas: Learning from the Artist-Educator
6:30 p.m.
Presented on Zoom
Free; registration required                                       

Presented by Seth Feman, deputy director for art and interpretation and curator of photography, Chrysler Museum of Art, and Jonathan Frederick Walz, director of curatorial affairs and curator of American art, The Columbus Museum

Join the exhibition co-curators to learn more about how Thomas’s artistic practices extended to every facet of her life. Drawing from their essays in the accompanying catalogue as well as from the exhibition, Walz will present on Thomas’s marionettes and Feman will share more about Thomas’s teaching practice.

Details about additional programs will be posted on FristArtMuseum.org and @FristArtMuseum on social media.

Exhibition Catalogue

A full-color, 336-page hardcover catalogue published by the organizing institutions and distributed by Yale University Press opens with a new poem by Ross Gay and features a large collection of new scholarship. The essays incorporate an array of perspectives, including Africana scholar Tiffany Barber on Thomas and performance and self-fashioning and exhibition co-curator Jonathan F. Walz on motion in her art. Other scholarly essays explore Thomas’s classroom activities, her church life, the cultivation of her garden, the context of environmentalism, and more topics. Contributors include exhibition co-curator Seth Feman, Vanderbilt University professor Rebecca VanDiver, and many more. The catalogue will be available for purchase in the Frist Art Museum gift shop.

Exhibition Credit

Co-organized by the Chrysler Museum of Art and The Columbus Museum, Georgia

Image Credits

1. Alma W. Thomas. Air View of a Spring Nursery, 1966. Acrylic on canvas. The Columbus Museum, museum purchase and gift of the National Association of Negro Business Women, and the artist

2. Alma W. Thomas. Spring Flowers Near Jefferson Memorial, 1970. Acrylic on canvas. Fisk University Galleries, Fisk University, Nashville, Tennessee, 1991.2116

3. Alma W. Thomas. Blast Off, 1970. Acrylic on canvas. Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, Washington, DC, Gift of Vincent Melzac

Supporter Acknowledgment

Aflac is proud to sponsor Alma W. Thomas: Everything Is Beautiful. The exhibition has also been made possible in part by major support from the Henry Luce Foundation, the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Supported in part by Ameriprise Financial.

Spanish translation sponsor: Center for Latin American, Caribbean, and Latinx Studies at Vanderbilt University

The Frist Art Museum is supported in part by The Frist Foundation, the Metro Nashville Arts Commission, the Tennessee Arts Commission, and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Read about the Frist’s Health and Safety Procedures.

Connect with us @FristArtMuseum #TheFrist #FristAlmaWThomas

FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Buddy Kite: 615.744.3351, bkite@FristArtMuseum.org
Ellen Jones Pryor: 615.243.1311, epryor@FristArtMuseum.org