Alma Thomas's Paintbrush
date: label: Date
content: Mid-20th century
notes: label: Caption
content: This is an ordinary artist’s paintbrush, made extraordinary by having belonged to Alma Woodsey Thomas (1891-1978). Thomas’s vibrant brushwork enlivened her abstract watercolors and mosaic-patterned paintings. In a 1970 interview, the artist described her brush strokes as “free and irregular, some close together, others far apart, thus creating interesting patterns of canvas peeping around the strokes.” Thomas devoted her life to sharing art with others, from teaching art in Washington, D.C. public schools to founding organizations dedicated to art education. At age 80, she became the first African American woman to have a solo exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. In her words, “painting released me from the limitations of the past and opened the door to progressive creativity.”
setName: label: See more items in
content: Anacostia Community Museum Collection
creditLine: label: Cite As
content: Anacostia Community Museum, Smithsonian Institution, Gift of David Driskell
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: Anacostia Community Museum
identifier: label: Accession Number
content: 1990.0063.0002
objectType: label: Type
content: paintbrush
objectRights: label: Restrictions & Rights
content: CC0
physicalDescription: label: Medium
content: Wood, ox hair, metal
label: Dimensions
content: 11 7/8 × 3/8 × 3/8 in. (30.2 × 1 × 1 cm)