Artist Alma Thomas was famous for her signature brushstrokes — or, as she called them, “Alma’s stripes” — yet these marks transcend simple lines. At times, they mimic the view of nursery plants arranged in neat rows from above. In other pieces, they resemble terrace tilework, forming shapes the artist herself called “hieroglyphs.” They can look like collaged construction paper, or a basket’s woven texture magnified to an epic scale. In some works, they even resemble the bold, fractured patterns of a giraffe’s coat.
The Smith College Museum of Art in Northampton is honoring Thomas’s “stripes” in their various forms with the exhibition “Composing Color: Paintings by Alma Thomas,” on display through Sunday, Jan. 10, 2027. The show is a touring exhibition from the Smithsonian American Art Museum, featuring one piece from the Smith College Museum of Art’s permanent collection and another on loan from the collection of Sylvia and Byron Lewis Sr.
“[The work] is really dynamic, really unique. I think once you’ve seen some of her work, it becomes instantly recognizable, which is a very hard thing for an artist to achieve, and it’s very experimental,” said Emma Chubb, the show’s organizing curator and the museum’s recently appointed associate director of curatorial affairs. “It feels really alive and vibrant half a century after it was made.”
The show features paintings that Thomas created between 1959 and 1978, divided into three sections themed around some of her major interests: “Space and Sky,” “Earth and the Seasons” and “Music and Nature.”
Born in 1891 — during what she called “the horse-and-buggy days” — Thomas spent the majority of her life in Washington, D.C. There, she made history as the first graduate of Howard University’s fine arts program. In addition to a 35-year career teaching art at Shaw Junior High School, she served as vice president of the Barnett-Aden Gallery, one of the nation’s first Black-owned art spaces.
“Her story and her life and the impact that she had in so many different directions, on students, on artists, on the art world, on D.C., is really inspiring and also maps so much onto 20th-century American history in ways that I think are very compelling,” Chubb said.
In 1972, she exhibited two solo shows at two major institutions: the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City and the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.
“Sometimes that can get left out of the story, but I think it’s really important that she was recognized and got to see her work appreciated in her lifetime, even though there’s still work to do,” Chubb said.
Decades after her death, during the second Obama administration, Thomas received another accolade: First Lady Michelle Obama chose her painting “Resurrection” to hang in the Old Family Dining Room at the White House.
One of the most recognizable images in “Composing Color” is “The Eclipse,” inspired by the total solar eclipse on March 7, 1970. It’s made of concentric rings of color — a dark blue circle in the middle, surrounded by lighter blue and green, then another thin ring of black. Reds, oranges and yellows envelop it, giving it the appearance of an eye staring at the viewer.
Thomas was fascinated by space and technology. As she once said, “I love the change. I love the new. I live well with technology.” Another work near “The Eclipse,” called “Snoopy Sees Earth Wrapped in Sunset,” also features a large circular form in vibrant warm tones. It represents the earth lit by the reflected light from the sun.
The works in the nearby “Earth and the Seasons” section showcase Thomas’s love of nature. Red forms cascade down a green background in one painting, suggesting falling autumn leaves; in another, likely inspired by a visit to the National Arboretum, a collection of “Alma’s stripes” atop a dark background suggests the bark of dogwood trees. While she was an avid gardener, the exhibition text notes that Thomas disliked painting outdoors; she preferred to observe nature in person and bring the memory of what she saw back to her studio.
In the final section, “Music and Nature,” visitors can use provided wireless headsets to listen to three unique playlists. The first features music that Thomas listened to while working in her studio, including pieces by classical composer Richard Strauss alongside tracks by Dean Martin and The Temptations. A second playlist, curated by student DJs at Smith College’s radio station, WOZQ 91.9 FM, showcases songs inspired by her artwork. The third selection offers a collection of nature sounds.
Thomas died in 1978 at the age of 86, only a few years after she had work shown at the Whitney and the Corcoran. Chubb noted that this kind of late-career success has deep resonance at an undergraduate institution like Smith.
“There’s so much time, hopefully, in our lives that we can change and grow and experiment,” she said. “You don’t have to have everything figured out by 22 or college graduation.”
Admission to the Smith College Museum of Art is free. The museum is open Tuesday through Sunday, minus major holidays, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. For more information about the show, visit scma.smith.edu/composingcolor.
