Episode 04: The Space Paintings of Alma Thomas (Part 1)

Written By Emily Olsen

Join Emily and Alexa as they discuss the visual artist Alma Thomas, her paintings inspired by outer space, and how one of those paintings ended up in the collection of the CIA.

Music credit: “Space” by Music_Unlimited

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Show Notes:

PROGRAMS: 

PAINTINGS:

MISCELLANEOUS:

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Transcript:

Emily

Welcome to the Art Astra Podcast. I'm Emily Olsen.

Alexa

I'm Alexa Erdogan.

Emily

And today we have a special episode about the painter Alma Thomas, discussing her life and work. While this week is just the two of us, we’re excited to have a part-two of this conversation coming out soon with a special guest. 

As a quick housekeeping note, we cannot believe we're already 4 episodes into the podcast! Thank you to everyone so far who have supported us and left us reviews and ratings and just talked about the podcast.

Thank you so, so much to everyone who has shared in our enthusiasm for this podcast! It's been such delight so far getting to talk about intersections of art and space, and we're just so, so excited to keep having those conversations.

Alexa

Yeah, it's - it's like the amount of really cool conversations I've been able to have with people as a result of the podcast, like people just sending, like, “Hey, this is what plankton I was!” Or like, “hey, here's this thing about image processing” and it's - it's so cool. I love being able to connect with people more about that.

So, thank you so much. We really appreciate you and we're so glad that you're along for this - this ride with us.

Emily

Yes. Exactly on that note of being along for the ride - before we get started on the life of Alma Thomas, I do want to preface this episode with a quick note about art! So yeah, Alexa, you and I have had this discussion before about how art or art history can be intimidating to some people, the way that engineering or hard sciences can be intimidating to those not in those fields.

And compounding that, we have all sorts of different types of art. And to those not in the know in the art world, it can be alienating, especially when presented with art from movements such as performance art or minimalism or abstraction without any context. And there can be that kind of "Emperor's new clothes" situation where it doesn't resonate with the viewer, and the viewer is made to feel bad or dumb for that.

Alexa

Mm-hmm.

Emily

I reference that for our listeners because that's certainly not our intention here. Both you and I have had several conversations about art and science as complementary and sometimes supplementary ways of understanding human experience in the world. And in this case, and in the case of our podcast broadly, the universe.

Alexa

Yes, I 100% agree. You know, we've had this conversation so many times about how science and art are so similar, and this is definitely one of them where art can be very intimidating. It has been intimidating to me in the past as somebody who didn't interact that formally with art education, just like science can be intimidating. There are a lot of really cool scientific discoveries or talk about space missions that sometimes people find difficult to engage with because whatever press release or scientist or anybody involved with these things, they're using really industry-heavy jargon. 

Or, sometimes, people might have unfortunate experiences with people in STEM who make them feel bad for not knowing something, which took that person in STEM years to understand to begin with. So yes, just adding that to reemphasize that point and also the whole point of this podcast is to try and make that intersection as accessible as possible to other people, as well as art and science in their own separate fields.

Emily

Exactly. And if, while you're listening, you pull up an image or images of these paintings while we're talking about them and find that they're maybe not your cup of tea, we hope that you'll still come along for the ride with us, and that you'll learn something interesting, or at least be entertained. If it's not your cup of tea, that's totally OK.

Alexa

It is definitely OK. If you look at it another way, it's kind of like having favorite types of science fields or like favorite planets. Some people really love biology and click with it, but they don't find physics very interesting or appealing. And some people really love Jupiter and Venus, while others don't really see the big deal with them. 

So different things appeal to different people, and the joy of diversity is that we all appreciate and are drawn to different things in the world around us. So it's OK, but we still hope you enjoy the ride and find something interesting out of all this.

Emily

Yes. And on the other hand, if you do want to learn more about Alma Thomas after this talk, it's truly such a spectacular time to be a fan of her work because there's been so many great museum shows and talks recently. In Washington, DC there was a spectacular exhibition a few years ago called "Alma Thomas: Everything is Beautiful" at the Phillips collection, which then later traveled to different places around the country afterwards. And right now there's a special exhibition on at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, also in DC, called "Alma Thomas: Composing Color.” But it's on in DC through August 4th. And then after that, it actually travels to the Denver Art Museum in Colorado, and it will be on view there in Colorado from September to early January 2025.

Also, several of the talks from the previous exhibition I mentioned, the one at the Phillips Collection, were actually streamed online, and there's a lot of programming about Alma Thomas, especially put out by the Smithsonian, available on YouTube. And I'll definitely drop them in the show notes. I will be referencing them throughout and definitely recommend checking them out. 

And if you want more podcasts about Alma Thomas, there is a spectacular episode in the Great Women Artists Podcast a couple years ago, which will also be linked in the show notes.

Alexa

So with that, Emily, would you like to tell us all about Alma Thomas, being the resident expert out of the two of us?

Emily

Ohh boy, would I!

Alexa

[laughter]

Emily

Before we embark on this journey together, can you tell me what you know about Alma Thomas, or if you're familiar with any of her work?

Alexa

I am familiar with the fact that she's an incredible artist, as evidenced by your passion for her that I have gained through diffusion of our friendship.

Emily

Fair enough. [laughter]

Alexa

…and a really good educator, and I feel like I have seen like some of her artwork, especially in some of the things you've shared on socials, like a lot of really cool colors and mosaics. But I don't know if I could name any of them off the top of my head. So this will be very educational for me.

Emily

Great! Yeah, from what I've noticed, I don't know that she's that well known outside of DC. And even in the art world, I mean, with the exception of like, recently, she kind of flies under the radar. But happy to begin…

Alma Woodsey Thomas was born on September 22nd, 1891, in Columbus, Georgia. She was the eldest of four daughters. Her father was a businessman and her mother was a dress designer. Her family ended up moving to the Logan Circle neighborhood of Washington, DC, while Alma Thomas was a teenager to escape the racial violence happening in Georgia, and also for the educational opportunities for Alma and her sisters. In Georgia, African American children could only attend school through grade school. And even though her family were considered upper middle class in Georgia, there was no way for Alma or her sisters to continue their schooling there. 

While DC was still segregated, as most places were in the United States at that time, there were definitely more opportunities for African Americans to continue their education, and Alma was able to go to high school and later even college at Howard University in DC. She originally enrolled as a home economics student, but she was very, very interested in costume design and her work with the school's theater department actually caught the eye of James V Herring, who at the time was founding the Arts Department at Howard. And so she actually became Howard's first Fine Arts graduate in 1924.

After graduating from Howard, she becomes a school teacher at the Shaw Junior High School in DC from 1924 literally until her retirement in 1960. So she is an educator throughout her life. And while she was teaching there, she organizes the 1st art gallery in DC public schools. She makes sure that the students have access to arts education, especially to African American artists.

Alma Thomas was a mainstay of the DC art scene in addition to her work as an educator, and she actually helped establish the first successful Black-owned private art gallery in the United States, which was the Barnett-Aden Gallery. And it's also the first gallery in the city to be racially integrated. So artists, patrons, all members of the arts community, could gather there, which was especially notable at the time because the city itself was still segregated.

During this time, as she's teaching, as she's working in the gallery, she's also continuing her own art education and her artistic practice. So in 1950, Thomas attends American University to continue her arts education. American University's also still in DC, and she completes the graduate program at American in art. She continues teaching, as I said, until 1960 when she retires (at the time she's in her late 60s), and she dedicates the remainder of her life to her professional artistic career.

And so throughout her life - we haven't really talked that much about her art yet - she was mainly inspired by nature and she was also inspired by music and she was very interested in the technology of her time. So, the technology of her time, in the 50s, 60s and 70s – it's mainly the Space Race. 

And so in the 60s, after her program at American University, she's also moving away from figurative painting, and the work that she's mainly known for is categorized in art history as abstract expressionism. Abstract expressionism in art history is…the artists that you're familiar with, probably, are Mark Rothko and Jackson Pollock. They were two of the main pioneers of this movement in the 1940s and the 1950s, essentially right after World War II. It gained popularity and is more accepted in the late 50s and the 60s. And so within the movement of abstract expressionism, Alma Thomas is often associated with the Washington Color School, which includes artists like Morris Lewis, Sam Gilliam, and Kenneth Noland. They are all abstract expressionist painters. They're known for painting with bright colors, and they were all artists at the time, known to be working in and around Washington, DC.

There's “more on that later” - I have written in all caps, not at all ominously on my notes, for this. [laughter]

Alexa

[laughter] I am excited.

Emily

In 1972, Alma Thomas becomes the first Black woman to have a solo show at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City. She's 81 years old at the time. In that - she's actually 30 when she began her graduate degree at American. So she's just consistently practicing her art throughout her life.

In that same year, her work was exhibited at an even larger show at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, which as a youth they had actually tried to prohibit her from entering, literally, as a student when she first came to DC.

Alexa

Oh wow.

Emily

So in the 1960s and the 1970s, she becomes known for these beautiful paintings inspired by space. But I wanted to share a few of them with you first to get a feel for her work as we proceed.

So the first painting we're going to look at is "A Glimpse of Mars" painted in 1969, which is in the collection of the Studio Museum in Harlem here in New York.

And I'm dropping it in the chat…And as we are an audio podcast, Alexa, would you mind describing this painting?

Alexa

Ooh, yes, OK. "A Glimpse of Mars". I have it up. So - this is really interesting, so….How do I describe this?

Picture like - they're these vertical bands of color. And from the left going to the right, it's like this deep blue and then a lighter blue and then red and pink, red and pink, and so on and so forth, and there's a little bit of green as well. And these bands aren't uniform. They are, like, different widths.

And each of these lines aren't whole color, like, filled in. They kind of almost look like cobblestone? Like you know, the - the texture of cobblestone streets?

Emily

Hmm, mm-hmm.  

Alexa

- or mosaic, I guess would be the word to use. But yeah, it does look like a cobblestone street that is painted with different colors.

Emily

Yes! Such - that's a very evocative description. Cobblestones is a great word for it because these - these we've referred to them in our conversations as tiles, mosaics, but they're not uniform in shape and orientation in a way, like they're exactly like cobblestones. It's different sizes and even some variations in shades of pink and red and blue.

Alexa

Mmm, mm-hmm.

Emily

This painting is very interesting to me. Like "A Glimpse of Mars", it's from 1969, so Alma would have been inspired by the imagery coming back in black and white from the Mariner 4 mission. And I love that the timing of this episode is right after our Spy Museum episode -

Alexa

Oh yeah [laughs]

Emily

[laughs] - because you and I were talking about Mariner 4 recently. If you would like to share…

Alexa

Yes.

Emily

- what literally our first thought after learning more about this mission.

Alexa

[laughs] Yes. We have learned so much about the Mariner 4 mission. If you remember, if you've listened to our Spy episode, we were talking about being able to store commands and software on a cassette tape that you could - in James Bond World - yank out of something, to turn off the satellite. The logistics of that aside - [laughs]

While the Mariner 4 spacecraft wasn't storing commands and flight software on a cassette tape (I believe that was stored on magnetic core memory), it did indeed store images and telemetry on a magnetic tape recorder like a cassette. And the capacity at the time wasn't, you know, as large compared to what we have access to now. I think it was like less than one MB? Like 0.65 MB or something like that?

But so fascinating and yeah, it makes sense in retrospect. You could definitely store data on cassette tapes, and it actually was done in space.

Emily

Yeah, in 1969! It was - when you first mentioned that to me, my first thought and I had said this aloud, "It's like 'Diamonds are Forever'!"

Alexa

Yeah, it's wild. Space technology of the ages is - is such an interesting thing that maybe we can get into another time, but…

Emily

Yeah. Just what we were able to accomplish, but also just like it's so cool to think about how artists of all disciplines were taking this information and interpreting it and exploring through artistic expression what that might mean, like working through what imagery of Mars might mean, or how it might look like.

It's so cool to see art historically how these images coming back from Mariner 4, which were in black and white were interpreted by artists such as Alma Thomas. And we see quite dramatically here all of these vibrant colors. And one of the talks I referenced earlier at the Smithsonian, there is a two-part series "Alma Thomas: Teacher, Artist, Trailblazer.” But in Part One, there is a absolutely fantastic presentation by Cynthia Hodge-Thorne, who is a curatorial fellow at the Baltimore Museum of Art, and her talk gives a pretty firm grounding of Alma Thomas and her artistic practice, as well as situating it within the art historical movements of, or in conversation with, the other art historical movements and the Civil Rights Movement. And what else was going on artistically in the 60s, both in film with Space Odyssey and Sun Ra in music. I super, super recommend checking it out.

But it's just so cool to see what our capabilities were with that type of technology, and how it was interpreted in real time by the artists and the people that were living it. 

I have another painting I want to show you in light of the sad news of Apollo 8 astronaut William Anders passing. 

Alexa

Oh yeah.

Emily

Yeah. So Anders took the first Earthrise photograph taken by a human as the Apollo 8 crew circumnavigated the Moon.

Alma was likely inspired by Anders' photograph and others taken by the astronauts when she painted this painting. It's called "Astronauts' Glimpse of Earth", which was painted in 1974, and it's actually in the collection of the Air and Space Museum. The Air and Space Museum seemed to have a lot of Alma Thomas and space paintings.

But yeah, would you like to describe this painting for the class?

Alexa

[laughter] All right, class, if you draw your attention to the whiteboard.

Emily

[laughs]

Alexa

This is - this is really cool. OK.

I feel like this is an exercise in itself to engage with art is just figuring out how to describe it.

Let's see.

It's like a sphere, like the Earth. And it's made up again of these like cobblestone "tiles"? Is what you were calling them earlier? Like cobblestone tiles of different blues, but underneath this lattice work of cobblestone tiles are a bunch of like really vibrant colors like reds and oranges and yellows, and there's some white in there as well.

And this whole thing, this whole like Earth-like sphere is sitting on a background that's kind of like a vignette. So it's like a really, like, beautiful blue color that's around the - I'm just going to call it the Earth [laughs] -

Emily

Yeah.

Alexa

- because that's what it looks like and like around the Earth. And then it fades into darker blue as it goes out towards the edges of the painting, which feels very much just like the beauty of Earth and all like the city lights that you might see, like from the ISS and how Earth is just like sitting there. And then gradually expanding into the void of space, like the - the background behind it.

These are really hard to describe. It's - it's like you really have to feel them and like, look at them and I feel like everyone is going to describe it a little bit differently, which is fascinating to me.

Emily

Yes. What's really cool about the blue lattice work, as you called it, layered over all of these different colors. Besides white, we've got yellow and orange and red and bits of green and lighter blue.

And it very much resembles, yeah, like maybe different lights of earth from space. But what's really cool, especially – so, you reference the ISS. Alma Thomas predates the ISS by decades. 

Alexa

(agreeing) Mm-hmm.

Emily

And so a lot of our visions of Earth that we're seeing through her work do seem to have resonances with technologies that come after. But they're painted way before any of those technologies existed, and it's so interesting to see what we think about when we see these images in a different time.

Alexa

In terms of like, both technology and also historically?

Emily

Exactly. Our space capabilities are so much more than they ever were before, but where we're at globally in history, we seem to have a lot of the same struggles, or at least we haven't solved challenges or issues that were still relevant in her time.

Alexa

Mm. Mm-hmm.

00:22:16 Emily

But this painting - Oh, that's the other thing, too. We keep referring to mosaics and tiles, and I definitely do this because that's how I think about them - but just so everyone is clear. They're not, like mixed media works. These are all paintings that we’re talking about. 

But it's just the way that she constructs, or composes them is so interesting to me, and another thing I want to flag. Especially - I didn't think of it until you were referring to it as cobblestones - which is such a great way to describe it. Alma Thomas was also very interested in architecture. As a Black woman in her time, I think originally she was discouraged from pursuing that career as an architect before she turned to education.

But I do think a lot about her interests in costume design and theater and puppetry and sets. And I think that she just informed by a lot of those physical constructions in how she's composing these paintings.

But it is very structural, especially in the stripe works, like these broken bands of color. In the 60s, she becomes known for this style of Alma's Stripes.

Alexa

It's actually so interesting you mentioned the word construction because looking at this again, it kind of reminds me of that story, "The Brick Moon".

Emily

Mm! Mm-hmm.

Alexa

I think it's like, in the probably late 1800s, there was an American writer called Edward Hale. And he wrote this sci-fi novella about an artificial satellite that essentially looks very much like this, in a sense. It is a brick moon. I don't remember the details of the story. I've never read it in full. I've just heard about it or seen it in museums and exhibits.

But it's essentially - Edward Hale is describing a space station. Like it accidentally launches and there are people on board and they have to survive. And so that just becomes this, like floating brick space station. And it's so interesting. I wonder if - I wonder if there's like any connection there at all, and if we would ever know if there was but…

So interesting how, like different people in different times and different backgrounds can come up with such really imaginative and beautiful descriptions of space and what is possible in space.

Emily

That's so cool. I do want to know how something gets launched accidentally. [laughter]

Alexa

[laughter] With people aboard, yeah.

Emily

Yes!

Emily

But that's - I wasn't super familiar with "The Brick Moon" or its timing. I know that - I think actually it's something that I learned about from you recently, from your socials.

Alexa

Ohh yeah, it was at the Museum of Flight. They had a “Home Beyond Earth” exhibition and I was drawn to this like little brick moon model was just sitting in a case and I was like, “What is this? I've - I've never heard about it before though, it sounds so cool.” You think you would have heard about it.

Emily

Yeah!

And then…do you have a favorite painting from any of the ones that I have shown you so far, or that you might have seen on my socials that you referenced earlier?

Alexa

Ooh, I really do love this - this "Astronauts' Glimpse of Earth". I - I'm trying to think…. there was one that you shared as well on your Instagram before. I think it's called "The Eclipse", which is also really beautiful, and I don't know if I can even pick a favorite between the two because they both - I'm going to use the phrase 'speak to me' - because it's the only phrase I can use to describe how I'm feeling. They both speak to me in different ways, like "Astronauts' Glimpse of Earth" kind of makes me feel melancholic, but also like really warm? And "The Eclipse" makes me feel really…like you know that feeling you get when you're just like in awe of something? I don't know what that feeling is called, but that's what that painting makes me feel. 

And I enjoy both of them. So Option C - all of the above. [laughs]

Emily

[laughs] Great answer!

Alexa

Thank you. Thank you.

Emily

Yeah, "The Eclipse" that you mentioned - I had posted about it after, of course, the Great North American Eclipse in March….? April, it definitely happened in April.

[both laugh]

Emily

What is time? 

Alexa

What is time? 

Emily

But it was painted in 1970, and what's important to note with "The Eclipse:" if you were to look it up, listeners, it's at the American Art Museum. But it is part of the “Composing Color” exhibition. So I believe it will be traveling to Denver in the summer. But it's one of her - I don't know if they're necessarily known as her circular paintings, but she does have a lot of paintings that have this circular design, and obviously it works here for "The Eclipse". And it's a lot more warm colors than the painting we were just looking at. It's very bright yellows and oranges and reds before it goes into purple, blue, green and then like a dark, dark teal.

It's interesting that you picked this painting because it's actually considered to be the last of her space paintings. I shared it on my Instagram recently because I had gotten to see “Composing Color” at the museum while I was last in DC. But she had painted it after witnessing a total solar eclipse from Washington, DC in March of 1970. The path of totality wasn't just Washington, DC, as a lot of people got to experience the most recent solar eclipse across North America, but the eastern United States was included in the path of totality for that one.

Yeah. So it's a - it's a really - it's a really great choice. All of them are great choices. I'm not biased at all.

Alexa

[laughs] 

Emily

Another note about her circular paintings… So she is known for her stripes and for these circular paintings, similar to "[The] Eclipse. Sometimes, the circle is originating from the dead center of the canvas, and a lot of her paintings are composed this way. What is really interesting too, at the beginning of the space paintings, she was painting a lot of the flower beds from around DC and then she starts using that circular composition and incorporating space into that. 

One of the first of her space paintings is called "Lunar Rendezvous", and it's a similar circular composition.  Again, I really recommend checking out the Smithsonian talk by Cynthia Hodge-thorne in the "Alma Thomas: Teacher, Artist, Trailblazer" video. Definitely linking that in the notes. And actually while you're checking that out, there is a similar talk in conjunction with the Phillips collection around the Everything is Beautiful exhibition that also features Matt Shindell from the Air and Space Museum talking about the contemporary technologies and essentially just like setting up the space race in Alma Thomas's time, and the images that Alma and everyone on Earth at that time would have had access to, and those missions. And it's just spectacular to listen to and to watch and see those images on YouTube.

The circular composition is also super interesting because she has a painting called "Resurrection" that is also included in Composing Color, and that is, I think, what probably the most people might know of her work, if you're not really all that familiar with her? Because it was exhibited at the White House during the Obama administration, at which point Alma Thomas became the first Black woman to have her work in the White House collection.  And it's rare in her works for having a spiritual theme or reference. 

Alexa

I will definitely have to check out more of Alma Thomas's work, because just the few that we have looked at together here are just so beautiful. And I feel like every time you look at them and revisit them, they are - there's like something new to consider, you know?

Emily

Yes, that's one of the reasons why I love her work so much.

Alexa

So Emily, actually turning the question back to you, do you have a favorite Alma Thomas painting?

Emily

Hmm…

Alexa

I think the answer is yes, but the question I think should be which [both laugh] is your favorite Alma Thomas painting?

[both laugh]

Emily

Fair enough.

Emily

Yes, I have multiple, which will not surprise you. [both laugh] My - one of my favorites is definitely a painting called "Starry Night and the Astronauts" painted in 1972. It's actually in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago and it is the first painting of hers that I saw. 

And I had gone to American [University]. I had lived in DC for five years, maybe not all at once, but in different iterations, and I had not noticed Alma Thomas's work or seen it in a way that I can remember until I was at the Art Institute in Chicago.

And I'm dropping the link in the chat. It is a work I love very much, but it's - it's - hmm - I don't want to use the word obscure. It's not immediately apparent when you see it what you're looking at. And part of that is of course that it's abstract expressionism. A fun game I like to play, by the way, this is pretty versatile a game, especially in modern art or even contemporary art, is to: if you're going through a museum with a friend, to see if you can guess what the painting is about without looking at the wall text.


Alexa

Oh, I love that.[laughs]

Emily

It's a fun - it's a fun game. It's a really… Alma Thomas is “Hard Mode” though.

[both laugh]

Emily

But this painting - it's these interspersed stripes of different shades of blue, and those are vertical. It's all different hues of blue verging from navy to almost like a cyan like light blue on white canvas, and we also have these horizontal stripes of warm tones, yellow, orange and red.

These stripes, both vertical and horizontal, are interesting to me, but what was especially interesting when I was reading the wall text was that there were two different ways that people could approach this painting. At least that was - I mean obviously you can approach it however you want - but [laughs] within the wall text it was talking about how it evokes just like the wide open sky. And that could be the astronauts themselves in their vehicle. Or, it could be the view that the astronauts have of the starry night.It's just so open-ended in how it approaches, both in execution and in concept, that I was very interested in the painting and I spent a very long time looking at this painting. And so it's also one of those paintings that Alma Thomas said that she was painting a lot of her space paintings imagining as if she was an astronaut. 

Alexa

I love that.

Emily

And for this painting, according to the Art Institute in Chicago, she had obviously never flown in a spacecraft. She painted this as if she was viewing the outside from an airplane and capturing the shifting patterns of light and color as if she was going very, very, very fast. And you're only seeing streaks of color.

Alexa

Oh, I see it. That's really cool.

Emily

Right? So that is my first favorite painting of hers. Or it's a painting that I hold very dear to my heart. And I was so excited to see it in DC in the "Everything is Beautiful" exhibition.

Her stripes - her signature stripes were actually inspired by watching the patterns of light glinting off of leaves from her garden.

Alexa
Ooooh.

Emily

And to see that natural inspiration and see that aesthetic developed from that observation applied to her space paintings is just so cool to me.

"Starry Night and the Astronauts" will always be one of my favorites because I think I had - I had seen the painting and then I had noticed the wall text and I saw 'starry night 'and I was also like reminded of Van Gogh's "Starry Night", which you can kind of see. You might interpret the different stripes of the different color blues as a reference to Van Gogh's "Starry Night", and those blue swirls of varying shades, which I thought was super cool. And then it was "Starry Night and the Astronauts", which you know is me-coded if ever a painting was.

[both laugh]

It was so cool to see those different interpretations and just within one painting, and just the opportunities are endless within this reasonably sized canvas.

Alexa

Mm-hmm.

Emily

And so that's my number one favorite painting by Alma Thomas.

My second favorite - or maybe first it might be tied? [both laugh] I love all of these paintings equally. No, I'm kidding. …But I love a lot of them.

The other painting that I really love is a painting called "Mars Dust" at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City, which, as I had said before, is where she had her solo show as the first Black woman to do so.

In this painting, your first impression are these stripes of red over dark blue and light blue. And what's super interesting to me about this painting - again, it's also inspired by Mars. But now I'm returning to my previously mentioned ominous note scrawled about the Washington Color School.

Alexa

Oh, right! [laughs]

Emily

What's super interesting to me - again, another discovery while wandering around in an art exhibition - there was a painting that's very similar to this called "Mars Reflection". And as I was admiring it, I looked at the wall text and I saw something on the wall text at the Phillips collection that I never expected to see…which was that it was “from the collection of the CIA.”

Alexa

Wait, what? [laughs]

Emily

[laughs] Yeah. Yes. So the Central Intelligence Agency has a collection of art, particularly art that is abstract expressionist. It's so interesting. They have a lot of Washington Color School artists [work] that were apparently acquired in the 60s, 70s, 80s and onwards. But for the Washington Color School artists, they were acquired without the artists' knowledge from galleries and they were acquired by the CIA to use in propaganda to exemplify that even American visual language was innovative compared to Soviet realism.

Alexa

What an interesting mission.

Emily

Right?

Alexa

I need to look closer at wall text from now on at museums.

[both laugh]

Emily

Yeah, not to encourage hypervigilance in museum situations [both laugh], but I thought that that was so interesting and just so weird. Because it's just not something that I would ever expect to see, especially on the wall text about one of my favorite artists, and I had no idea before then that the CIA was even doing this. Especially because a lot of the artists they were collecting for this purpose were not advocates for the CIA and their activities.

[both laugh]

Alexa

Guessing that's why it was taken without their knowledge. 

Emily

Yeah.

Alexa

That part is so interesting to me too. Like - 

Emily

Yeah.

Alexa

Huh. 

Emily

Yeah, I mean, they were acquired -

Alexa

That's a lot to unpack there.

Emily

Yeah, apparently their collection is currently, it's still, they still have a collection and allegedly [laughs] it's in Virginia. But I want to see it someday, but I doubt I would ever get the chance to. It's not open to the public.

But the CIA acquired the works from a businessman who had been the CEO of the Corcoran and was an art collector himself called Vincent Melzac. Being based again in Virginia, it then makes sense, especially given the abstract expressionist angle and collection interest, that they're requiring a lot of the Washington Color School in the late 50s and 60s because of the location there, and I would imagine just like ease of acquisition. 

But again, yeah, these were all acquired and like ended up in the collection of the CIA without the artists' knowledge.

Alexa

Yeah, that's so interesting. I'm so glad that we're still able to see them now though.

Emily

Yeah! And it's another thing too that, what's super interesting to me - again like, it's not necessarily a surprise to me that any of these works were used in propaganda in an innovation context, especially Alma Thomas's work, because of what she happened to be painting, like the Space Race, which is already a prestige competition between the United States and the Soviet Union.

Alexa

Mm-hmm.

Emily

And for it to be further captured in ways that are trailblazing in any context, but especially in visual art at the time. Not a surprise that they'd be collected for that context.

Alexa

Yeah, that makes sense actually, when you say it out loud and walk through it.

[both laugh]

Emily

But - bet you weren't expecting me to say that when you asked the question!

[both laugh]

00:41:00 Alexa

[jokingly] Hey, what's your favorite painting? Oh, this one that was, you know, acquired by the CIA.

Emily

To confirm, the "Mars Dust" one is very similar to the one in the CIA's collection, but they are two different paintings. They just look very similar.

Alexa

Gotcha. …Still wild.

Emily

They're both beautiful.

Alexa

They're both beautiful. [both laugh]

That's amazing. I really want to see Alma Thomas's work in person now, because just being able to see it on the screen is beautiful enough. But man, in person, that must be a fun experience.

Emily

Yeah. Yeah, I hope you get to. It's honestly, I mean, I'm not biased at all, yeah-

[both laugh]

Alexa

This is a completely objective -

Emily

We have now been recording for almost an hour and a half. [laughs]

Alexa

I know, I looked at that like just a few minutes ago and I was like, wait, surely that means minutes. No, that can't be!

[both laugh]

Emily

But yeah, so… now to close the loop after we've looked at some of these paintings from the 70s.

Alma Thomas passed away in 1978 at the age of 86. And to this day, she is a very celebrated figure of Washington, DC. She actually had a day dedicated to her, September 22nd - I believe last year? No, the year before - the mayor dedicated it "Alma Thomas Day" and there was a series of programs around the city.

Alexa

Oh cool.

Emily

Yeah! So her house just recently went up for sale in Logan Circle a couple years ago, and it was marked and at the time as, like, Alma Thomas's house. Yeah, she's just a very celebrated figure. 

There is so much programming, especially during the pandemic, and immediately after. So I'll have a lot of links to drop in show notes. I really recommend you check them out. There was a really cool one at the Smithsonian, a different talk from the one that I've mentioned where it was a talk with one of the educators and the conservator.

And it was a look at what they could learn about Alma Thomas and her practice by studying the paintings under different types of light. And just from a materials perspective that I thought was really, really cool. And then also, if any educators are listening, the Smithsonian talks I've referenced before, "Alma Thomas: Teacher, Artist, Trailblazer" - at the time they premiered these programs a couple years ago, they were also piloting a lot of content for teachers and lesson plans that, given the breadth of Alma Thomas's work, really touched on all different types of content and skill development. So if you are an educator and interested in that sort of thing, definitely worth checking out. I will be linking those talks that reference those materials and how to find them in our show notes.

Alexa

I can absolutely see why you love Alma Thomas so much. What a - what a beautiful intersection with art and space and culture, and just in general a person who sounds like a fantastic human being who both did so much cool stuff and also gave back to her community. Yeah. 

Emily

Yeahh

Alexa

Yeah, it's contagious now. This passion for Alma Thomas. Thank you for this.

Emily

I'm so glad. Yeah! I'm just so glad to share it with you. I just love her -

Both

- so much. [laughter]

Emily

Anyway, if you are already familiar with Alma Thomas's work and you have a favorite of your own, or if you would like to tell us your thoughts on any of the paintings that we've talked about in the episode today, we'll be linking them in the show notes as well as in the transcriptions when they come up in our conversation. 

We'd love to hear your thoughts, just tag us on social or leave us a review on Apple.

Alexa

Yes, I would definitely love to hear people's comments on if they've seen Alma Thomas before and what their comments are about that. But also people like myself who are very new to Alma Thomas? So interested to hear what you think when you see her paintings.

But yes, our episodes will be available wherever you get your podcasts and transcripts for this episode and all episodes are available on our website at artastra.space. Thanks so much for coming on this beautiful journey with us and thank you, Emily for - for educating me on Alma Thomas.

Emily

No, thank you so much for listening. I hope I was able to… maintain my inside voice in my excitement this time.

[both laugh]

Emily Olsen
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Episode 05: Alma Thomas (Part 2) with Janelle Wellons
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Episode 03: James Bond in Space with Amanda Ohlke