Lot 4: ALMA THOMAS, Untitled, 1968 (acrylic on cut and stapled paper, 18 1/2 x 34 1/4 inches / 47 x 87 cm). | Estimate $250,000-$350,000. SOLD for $477,300 fees included
EMPLOYING COUNTLESS DAUBS of acrylic paint, Alma Thomas produced expressive and radiant abstract works defined by rhythmic patterns and exuberant color. Inspired by the beauty of nature and space, the paintings feature vertical “Alma Stripes,” concentric circle formats, and mosaic compositions. She also worked in a hard-edge style with flat fields of color. Scholars long wondered how Thomas arrived at her completed paintings. What was her working process? How did she explore concepts? How much preparatory work was involved in determining the compositions and color placement? More than decade ago, a gallery exhibition provided some clues.
In the fall of 2014, Hemphill Fine Arts presented “Alma Thomas: Thirteen Studies” in Washington, D.C. Now called Hemphill Artworks and located on K Street in a street-level space in Mount Vernon Square, the gallery was on 14th Street on the third floor when it mounted the remarkable exhibition dedicated to the artist’s preparatory works on paper.
David C. Hart authored the catalog essay that accompanied the Hemphill exhibition. In the opening paragraph, he noted the Thomas studies “were owned by her former student, dealer, and friend, Harold R. Hart.” The author is the nephew of Harold Hart and was an associate professor of art history at the Cleveland Institute of Art (CIA) at the time. He is now an emeritus professor at CIA.
Hart went on to further explain the connection between the artist and his uncle. “Thomas was a close friend of Harold Hart’s family; she taught Harold at Shaw (Junior High School in Washington, D.C.) and nurtured his interest in modern art,” he wrote. “After Hart became the director of the Martha Jackson Gallery in New York, where he would later mount two solo exhibitions of Thomas’ work, he was instrumental in arranging her exhibition at the Whitney in 1972. As executor and recipient of the bulk of Thomas’ estate, Hart possessed the largest number of the artist’s works of any private dealer, and he was an important source for the purchase of her work until his death in 1997.”
The Untitled study (circa 1968) by Alma Thomas covered the catalog for “Alma Thomas: Everything is Beautiful,” a major traveling exhibition co-organized by The Columbus Museum in Columbus, Ga., and Chrysler Museum of Art in Norfolk, Va.
Works on view in the Hemphill exhibition spanned circa 1966 to circa 1971 and included “Untitled, Study for Resurrection, 1966” (circa 1966), a precursor to the prized painting acquired by the White House during the Obama Administration, becoming the first artwork by an African American woman to
The latter has received the most widespread exposure. The Untitled, acrylic on paper study graces the cover of the artist’s most recent exhibition catalog and was auctioned this week at Phillips New York in the Modern & Contemporary Art Evening Sale on Nov. 19.
The study covered the catalog for “Alma Thomas: Everything is Beautiful,” a major traveling exhibition co-organized by The Columbus Museum in Columbus, Ga. (where Thomas was born) and Chrysler Museum of Art in Norfolk, Va. The cover design was particularly beautiful. A succession of “Alma Stripes,” the horizontal study features a spectrum colors across multiple sheets of paper held together with staples. The image of the work wraps from the front cover around to the back cover of the catalog.
Jonathan Frederick Walz and Seth Feman co-curated the exhibiton. To promote the study, Phillips commissioned an article by Walz, who also co-edited the catalog. The auction house also conducted an interview with art advisor Emily Friedman. The checklist for “Everything is Beautiful” lists the study as belonging to the “Steve and Lesley Testan Collection, as curated by Emily Friedman Fine Art.”
The provenance note on the auction lot documents successive ownership of the study: Collection of the artist; Harold R. Hart (by descent from the above); Charles Arnold Hart (by descent from the above); David C. Hart (gifted by the above); Hemphill Fine Arts, Washington, D.C.; Emily Friedman Fine Art; Acquired from the above by the present owner.
“These exuberant Frankensteins, held together with masking tape and staples, evidence Thomas’ deep knowledge of color theory and her determination to find the precise, sophisticated combination of hues her exacting eye demanded.” — Jonathan Frederick Walz
Untitled (circa 1968) by Alma Thomas was featured in “Alma Thomas: Thirteen Studies,” the 2014 exhibition at Hemphill Fine Arts in Washington, D.C., and also appears on the cover of the recent exhibition catalog “Alma Thomas: Everything is Beautiful.” | Courtesy Phillips
According to Walz, scholars only learned of the Untitled study when it was featured in the Hemphill exhibition. He wrote:
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Two works in Thirteen Studies particularly stood out: Untitled, c. 1968, now at the Museum of Modern Art (299.2015), and Untitled, c. 1968, now returning to the market after approximately a decade in private hands. Both mockups are composed of multiple pieces of brightly painted paper that Thomas scissored apart, recombined, and overpainted. These exuberant Frankensteins, held together with masking tape and staples, evidence Thomas’ deep knowledge of color theory and her determination to find the precise, sophisticated combination of hues her exacting eye demanded.
Walz stated the lot was “undoubtedly a study for an uncompleted or as yet unidentified acrylic on canvas painting from Thomas’ Earth series.” He also provided insight about the decision to showcase the study on the cover of catalog, given the exhibition included many large-scale canvas paintings. Walz continued:
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Indeed, in Untitled (like its MoMA counterpart) there is such a sense of the handmade: cut edges, layered strips, skewed tape, obsessive stapling. It is this heady combination of hand and mind that convinced co-curator Seth Feman and me to advocate for Untitled’s appearance on the front cover of the exhibition catalogue Alma W. Thomas: Everything Is Beautiful. To us, it seemed to plainly exemplify what Dr. Feman has termed Thomas’ “relentless search for beauty.”
Thomas’s Untitled study was estimated at $250,000-$350,000 and sold for $477,300. The result is the highest price achieved for a work on paper by the artist. Her overall record at auction is $3.9 million set by “A Fantastic Sunset” (1970), a concentric painting on canvas, at Christie’s New York in 2023. CT
BOOKSHELF
The auction features Alma Thomas’s Untitled (1968) study, which graces the cover of the recent exhibition catalog, “Alma W. Thomas: Everything Is Beautiful.” The exhibition explored the full spectrum of Alma Thomas’s creativity, from her paintings and marionettes to fashion and gardening. In 2014, Hemphill Fine Arts published a catalog to accompany “Alma Thomas: Thirteen Studies.” “Alma Thomas” was published on the occasion of an exhibition organized by the Tang Teaching Museum and Studio Museum in Harlem in 2016. “Alma Thomas Resurrection” accompanied a 2019 exhibition at Mnuchin Gallery in New York City. Also consider, the children’s book “Ablaze with Color: A Story of Painter Alma Thomas.”
