About the Course
American artist Alma Thomas once wrote "Love comes by looking.” In this multi-session course, take a closer look at the artist, her art, and her world. Learn about Thomas’s creative philosophies and inspiration, fall in love with her eye for color and pattern, and dive into the deeper context of her long life and impactful career.
Composing Color: Paintings by Alma Thomas from the Smithsonian American Art Museum is on view September 8, 2024, through January 12, 2025. Entry is included with general admission.
Course Pricing
- Tickets for Museum Friends are $40 for the full course or $15 for an individual session
- Tickets for Members are $55 for the full course or $20 for an individual session
- Tickets for Non-Members are $70 for the full course or $25 for an individual session
- Tickets for Students are FREE with a valid student ID
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Alma Thomas, The Eclipse, 1970, acrylic on canvas, 62 × 49 3/4 in. (157.5 × 126.4 cm), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the artist, 1978.40.3
Course 1: Alma Thomas: The Creative Age
September 14, 2024 - 2 pm–3:15 pm
Alma Thomas’s long life and late-career breakthroughs prove that creativity gets better with time. Like other artists who were prolific well into older age, Thomas’s creativity dynamically evolved in her later decades. In this course session, we’ll celebrate Thomas’s vibrant abstractions from the 1950s-1970s and consider her journey and others’ who worked well into their seventies, eighties, and beyond.
Alma Thomas, Snoopy Sees Earth Wrapped in Sunset, 1970, acrylic on canvas, 47 7/8 x 47 7/8 in. (121.6 x 121.6 cm.), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the artist, 1978.40.4
Course 2: Alma's World
October 19, 2024 - 2 pm–3:15 pm
Alma Thomas’s life was as rich and complex as her paintings. This course session focuses on the larger context in which Thomas lived and worked, paying particular attention to the artistic, social, and political movements that influenced Thomas’s development as an artist.
Alma Thomas, Light Blue Nursery, 1968, acrylic on canvas, 49 x 47 7/8 in. (124.4 x 121.5 cm), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the artist, 1970.324
Course 3: The Meaning and Making of Color
November 16, 2024 - 2 pm–3:15 pm
Alma Thomas’s abstract paintings immediately catch the eye with their exuberant colors. In this course session, explore Thomas’s signature use of color more closely and consider the history and meaning of color in art more broadly. With a newfound lens for looking, deepen your visual experience of any artwork you encounter.
