Masterpiece: Starry Night and the Astronauts, 1972 by Alma Woodsey Thomas

Keywords: Abstract Expressionism, Hard Edge, Color Field Grade: 6th Month: February Activity: Elements and Scapes Allow 40 minutes

Meet the Artist: • Alma Woodsey Thomas was born September 22, 1891 in Columbus, Georgia. • As a young girl Thomas experienced the effects of racial segregation in the South, preventing her from attending school and completing her education. • When Alma was 16, her family moved to Washington, D.C. where she was able to enter Armstrong Technical High School, her first exposure to formal art training. Upon graduating, Thomas attended the Miner Teachers Normal School, specializing in early childhood education. • After teaching for six years in Delaware, she returned to Washington in 1921 to enter Howard University. With the urging of her art professor, Thomas became a student in his burgeoning art department where her work became more abstract. After graduating from college in 1924, she taught at Shaw Junior High School, where she remained until her retirement in 1960. In 1935 she received a Master of Arts degree in art education from Columbia University, New York. • Her work during undergraduate and graduate school was representative in manner and incorporated elements from the styles of two famous artists; the Post-Impressionist, Paul Cezanne and Fauvist, Henri Matisse. • When Thomas retired from teaching in 1960, she enrolled in art classes at American University where she studied the Color Field movement and theory and devoted herself to painting full-time. At this point, Alma Thomas was now being recognized as a professional artist. • Within twelve years after her first class at American University she began creating Color Field Paintings*, inspired by the work of the New York School and Abstract Expressionism. She worked out of the kitchen in her house, creating works like Watusi (Hard Edge, 1963), a manipulation of the Matisse cutout “The Snail”, in which Thomas shifted shapes around and changed the colors that Matisse used, and named it after a Chubby Checker song. • For her first exhibit in 1966 at the Gallery of Art at Howard University, Thomas created Earth Paintings, a series of nature inspired abstract works: Wind and Crepe Myrtle Concerto (1973), Autumn Leaves Fluttering in the Breeze (1973), Springtime in Washington (1971). These were inspired from trips into the countryside, where Thomas would pull ideas from the effects of light and atmosphere on rural environments. • Thomas was the first African-American woman to have a solo exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. • Thomas died in Washington in 1978.

Discussion about “Starry Night with Astronauts”: This composition is the final work in Thomas’s Space Series which began in 1969, in response to the Apollo missions’ space explorations and moon landings and inspired by the 1889 painting The Starry Night by Vincent van Gogh (1853– 1890). The piece was painted with acrylics and measures 60”x53”. Like the other works in this series, this composition contains no obvious references to an actual space expedition. Instead, the artist relied on abstract elements to suggest her theme. To evoke the night sky, she filled the large canvas with vertical strokes of blue, ranging in tone from sky blue to indigo. In the upper right-hand corner, she added a small kaleidoscope of red, orange, and yellow to suggest Apollo 10, the spaceship that preceded the vessel used in the first moon landing (Apollo 11). The astronauts nicknamed Apollo 10 "Snoopy," after the dog in Charles Schulz’s comic strip "Peanuts." The colorful bars in the painting seem translucent, recalling the small pieces of broken glass or bits of ceramic used in a mosaic. Visible traces of the unpainted canvas and flecks of white paint create the sensation of flickering light. The entire surface appears to glisten, suggesting the mysterious beauty of outer space and inspiring a sense of wonder reminiscent of what many felt in the 1960s and 1970s at the time of the first space flights.

For more information on “ Starry Night with Astronauts ” and quotes by the artist, visit. http://www.artic.edu/aic/collections/citi/resources/Rsrc_001096.pdf

*What is Color Field Painting? − Color Field Painting is considered the quieter sibling of the Abstract Expressionist family of art. − Bright, local colors are presented in specific shapes that can be amorphous or geometrical, but not too straight-edged. − Often Color Field Paintings are usually done on huge canvases. If you stand close to the canvas, the colors seem to extend beyond your peripheral vision, like a lake or an ocean. The mega-size rectangles encourage the viewer to experience the color as an enormous, engulfing expanse: a field of color. Then you can almost feel the sensation of the colors themselves. − The works emphasize the flatness of the canvas or paper, because that is what a painting is literally about. − The excitement comes from the tension set up between the colors and shapes. That is the subject of the work. − The integration of shapes through overlapping or interpenetrations blurs spacial distinctions, so that there is almost no sense of the image versus the background (what art historians call "figure and ground"). Sometimes the shapes seem to both emerge and submerge into the surrounding colors.

Possible Questions o What are the main colors? o How did the artist show the vastness of space? What color(s) did she use? What patterns? o How did the artist show the astronauts? In the rocket. o What was the artist thinking when she painted this image? About the recent launch of Apollo 10 spacecraft as imagined from earth. o How does this image make you feel? o If you were in this image, what would you hear? o What shapes do you see? Do they overlap? Are the shapes alike or one of a kind? Each shape is slightly different and do not overlap but the artist placed the shape and color close enough to each other that there is little spacial distinction. (Outlines with space inside create shapes) ? o Compare “ Blue Atmosphere” by Helen Frankenthaler to this piece…show students the difference between the soft edge (i.e. blurred lines) used in Frankenthaler’s and a hard edge used in Thomas’s where the white outlines the color space to create the shape. o Do you think the artist used a paintbrush? Why or why not? o How do you think she did it? Example: Was the canvas hanging up or lying on the floor while she was painting it? Did she use a pencil? Most likely it was hanging and it is documented that a pencil was typically used to keep her lines straight during her Color Field Paintings.

Explain Activity: Please show the students the PowerPoint slide show of different aerial photography available on the CD located in the binder. Students will imagine a landscape as seen from above (aerial view) and base their designs off of how they see it by simply looking at the landscape in percentages of color and location of colors with each other. They will create their own Color Field Painting in an abstract expressionist manner using pieces of torn colored construction paper in a linear or circular direction.

Activity: Elements and Scapes

Materials needed : 9x12 heavy white paper with guide lines, colored construction paper cut into ½ strips (smaller pieces to be torn by student), glue stick, trays, folder of the aerial images.

Activity Preparation: cut the colored construction paper into the ½ strips. On lesson day, arrange the colored construction paper strips according to their colors on the trays on a large workstation.

Process: 1. Have the students close their eyes and image they are a bird or in a low flying airplane, soaring over a landscape. They may also use the folder of aerial images for inspiration. Have students think about their landscape in either a horizontal, vertical, or circular line form. What time of the year it is…spring, summer, fall, winter? Think of the colors that are associated with their landscape and season. Is there a mountain, hill, water source in their landscape? Now have them reduce their aerial landscape into percentages of color and the location of colors as they relate to each other. I have included a sample for you to demonstrate this concept. 2. Give each student a white paper with the guide lines. In an orderly manner, have the students come to the large workstation to select their colored construction paper they will use in their aerial landscape. 3. Have students write their name on back of paper. 4. With a pencil, have students lightly layout their landscape in simple shapes…i.e. no detail. This is only a guide to help with delineating color percentages. Tear the construction paper strips into small, rectangular-ish pieces of varying lengths and edges….similar to Thomas’s work…and arrange them according to their landscape. The pieces should follow the pencil lines so they line up and may slightly overlap each other in some areas but there should also be white areas to help their colors pop out. 5. When students are satisfied with their arrangement, glue in place using the glue stick. 6. Have students title their masterpiece on lower right corner.