Oil on canvas, 1957. 915x510 mm; 36x20 inches. Signed and dated in oil, lower right recto. Signed in oil across the verso.
Provenance: ex-collection the artist; Harold Hart, director of the Martha Jackson Gallery, New York; private New York collection.
This is a wonderful early example of Alma Thomas's abstract oil painting from the late 1950s, before she had been "discovered." Attending classes at American University in the 1950s, Thomas developed the abstract idiom for which she is known, and was associated with what is called the Washington Color Field School. In 1960, she ended her teaching career and began a full-time dedication to her art at the age of 69. She achieved national recognition in 1972 when she received a one-person exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art, a first for an African-American woman.
