Fiery Sunset

Alma Woodsey Thomas, 1973

Alright… guess how old she was when she painted this. Look at those jumpy marks. Nothing lined up. Blue slapped on every which way. You’re thinking young, right? Nope. Her name’s Alma Thomas. And she’s past eighty. She spent thirty-five years teaching art to junior high kids in Washington. Same classroom, start to finish. The arthritis got so bad she figured that was it. So she retired. Then Howard University offered her a show. But she didn’t want to hang the old stuff. So she’s looking out her living room window, and… here’s how she tells it: “The holly tree! I looked at the tree in the window, and that became my inspiration.” Light, chopped up by the leaves. Her kitchen was her studio. The title says Fiery Sunset, so you figure the orange is the painting. But the orange went on first. Flat, edge to edge. Then the blue came after, in short strokes. So the sunset’s basically whatever orange she didn’t cover. Tight on the left, looser as you go right. The spring before, the Whitney had given her a solo show. The first Black woman they’d ever given one. The New York Times ran the headline: “At 77, She’s Made It to the Whitney.” She was actually eighty. And that year, she said this about growing up in Columbus, Georgia: “One of the things we couldn’t do was go into museums, let alone think of hanging our pictures there. My, times have changed. Just look at me now.”

▶ Listen on Listen to Frank

More from Frank