Earth and the Seasons

Alma Thomas was a lover of nature, a connoisseur of the parks and gardens in Washington, DC, and an avid gardener who cultivated crepe myrtle trees and lush flower beds in her backyard. Visible from the window of her kitchen studio, her garden’s colors, lines, and forms inspired her art. As she once stated, “I noticed how the light shone on and through other trees, shrubs, and flowers and tried repeatedly to capture this magic.”

Her paintings visualize the growth cycle of plants and the shifting hues, sounds, and atmosphere of her surroundings across the seasons. They express the smell of fresh-cut grass in spring, the warmth of sunny days, the fiery colors of fall, and the hush that follows a snowfall.

Red Abstraction
1959
Oil paint on canvas
Smithsonian American Art Museum: Gift of the artist, 1978.40.2

Red Abstraction
1960
Oil paint on canvas
Smithsonian American Art Museum: Gift of the artist, 1978.40.1

Red Abstraction represents a transition in Thomas’s evolution as an artist, as she shifted from representation in the late 1950s to the abstract style she is best known for in the mid-1960s and before she used bright and richly colored acrylic paint. Rendered in oil paint, this work testifies to Thomas’s persistent interest in the abstracted forms and colors of nature. Its orange and red hues evoke the vibrant foliage of fall, while vertical swipes of black suggest the directional growth of trees.

Fall Begins
1976
Acrylic paint on canvas
Smithsonian American Art Museum: Bequest of the artist, 1980.36.1

Like many of Thomas’s paintings, Fall Begins suggests an experience of sensory immersion—it conveys not only the brilliant colors of fall foliage but the movement and sound of branches and leaves dancing in the wind.

Spring Grass
1973
Acrylic paint on canvas
Smithsonian American Art Museum: Bequest of the artist, 1980.36.12

Snow Reflections on Pond
1973
Acrylic paint on canvas
Smithsonian American Art Museum: Bequest of the artist, 1980.36.10

Light Blue Nursery
1968
Acrylic paint on canvas
Smithsonian American Art Museum: Gift of the artist, 1970.324

With its neatly ordered rows of brushstrokes, Light Blue Nursery evokes colorful plants lined up at a nursery. The variation of touch and direction with which Thomas applied the strokes of paint creates a sense of flickering movement. She once said, “My paintings of nurseries and flower gardens have been inspired by the forms or color patterns seen from airplanes speeding through space.”

Arboretum Presents White Dogwood
1972
Acrylic paint on canvas
Smithsonian American Art Museum: Bequest of the artist, 1980.36.6

Thomas considered painting outdoors to be outdated and instead sought out sensory experiences she later conveyed through her work in her studio. Arboretum Presents White Dogwood was likely inspired by an early springtime visit to the US National Arboretum, a sprawling botanical garden in Washington, DC. She explained that she went there “not to paint but to get impressions. A friend of mine goes there and gets every leaf. I said I’d go crazy doing that. I told him, ‘Just go and look. It settles you, and then you don’t need to look at it anymore.’”