CURRICULUM GUIDE GRADES K- 12 MILDRED THOMPSON Resonance, Selected Works from the 1990s JUNE 23 – OCT. 2, 2016 SCAD: The University for Creative Careers The Savannah College of Art and Design is a private, nonprofit, accredited institution conferring bachelor’s and master’s degrees at distinctive locations and online to prepare talented students for professional careers. SCAD offers degrees in 42 majors, as well as minors in more than 70 disciplines across its locations in Savannah and Atlanta, Georgia; in Hong Kong; in Lacoste, France; and online through SCAD eLearning. With more than 32,000 alumni worldwide, SCAD demonstrates an exceptional education and unparalleled career preparation. The diverse student body, consisting of more than 12,000 students, comes from across the U.S. and more than 100 countries worldwide. Each student is nurtured and motivated by a faculty of nearly 700 professors with extraordinary academic credentials and valuable professional experience. These professors emphasize learning through individual attention in an inspiring university environment. The innovative SCAD curriculum is enhanced by advanced, professional-level technology, equipment and learning resources, and has garnered acclaim from respected organizations and publications, including 3D World, American Institute of Architects, Businessweek, DesignIntelligence, U.S. News & World Report and the Los Angeles Times. For more information, visit scad.edu. Cover image: Mildred Thompson, Magnetic Fields, c. 1990–92, courtesy of Don Roman, Stone Mountain, Georgia. Table of Contents About the SCAD Museum of Art 1 About the Artist 3 About the Curriculum Guide 5 Learning Activities 1. Explore emotional energy in lines 6 2. Apply geometric language to abstraction 8 3. Make the invisible visible 10 4. Interpret abstract painting through jazz 12 National Core Arts Standards 16 Glossary 18 Curriculum Connections 20 Artist Image Credits 22 Related SCAD Degree Programs 24 Sketches and Notes 27 Museum Map 30 2 About the SCAD Museum of Art The SCAD Museum of Art showcases work by acclaimed Museum awards artists, providing opportunities for students from all majors to learn from art world luminaries and expand their artistic Since opening its doors in October 2011, the renovated points of view. museum has been celebrated for its inspired architecture and design, world-class exhibitions, and visionary Mounting more than 20 exhibitions each year, the museum community outreach and education programs that enrich has presented solo exhibitions by such renowned artists art enthusiasts, educators and students of all ages. as Jane Alexander, Uta Barth, Lynda Benglis, Alfredo Jaar, Sigalit Landau, Liza Lou, Angel Otero, Yinka Shonibare SCAD is proud to be recognized by the following: MBE, Kehinde Wiley and Fred Wilson, curated alongside American Institute of Architects Institute Honor Award ever-changing, site-specific installations by such artists • for Architecture as Daniel Arsham, Kendall Buster, Ingrid Calame and Odili Donald Odita. Additionally, the André Leon Talley Gallery • American Institute of Architects South Atlantic Region, has hosted such couture exhibitions as Little Black Dress, Design Award Oscar de la Renta: His Legendary World of Style and Vivienne • American Institute of Architects-Savannah chapter, Westwood’s Dress Up Story — 1990 Until Now. The museum’s Honor Award (top honor awarded) permanent collection includes the Walter O. Evans Collection • American Concrete Institute-Georgia chapter, first place of African American Art, the Modern and Contemporary in restoration category Art Collection, the Earle W. Newton Collection of British • Congress for the New Urbanism, Charter Award and American Art, the 19th- and 20th-century Photography Collection and the SCAD Costume Collection. • Historic Savannah Foundation, Preservation Award • International Interior Design Association-Georgia The museum building itself is a work of art, demonstrating chapter, Best of the Best Forum Design Award and Best the university’s ongoing commitment to historic of the Best Forum Award (education category) preservation and adaptive reuse. Constructed in 1853, the • National Trust for Historic Preservation, National original walls feature handmade Savannah gray bricks, Preservation Award forming the oldest surviving antebellum railroad depot • Southeastern Museums Conference Exhibition in the country. In 2011, this National Historic Landmark Competition, Certificate of Commendation for the was transformed into an award-winning, modern museum outstanding exhibit Pose/Re-pose: Figurative Works building by architect Christian Sottile, a SCAD alumnus and Then and Now dean of the SCAD School of Building Arts. • Southeastern Museums Conference Publication SCAD students are the heart of this teaching museum; Competition, 2012 Gold Award, outstanding design, for they attend academic classes and career workshops, the Walter O. Evans Center for African American Studies lecture series, film screenings, gallery talks and annual Curriculum and Resource Guide events within its storied walls. SCAD students also serve • American Alliance of Museums’ 2015 Museum Publications as museum docents, welcoming visitors, interpreting Design Competition, first place (educational resources the exhibitions and interacting with illustrious museum category) for the SCAD curriculum guide accompanying guests. As a center for cultural dialogue, the SCAD Museum the exhibition Divine Comedy: Heaven, Purgatory and Hell of Art engages students through dynamic, interdisciplinary Revisited by Contemporary African Artists educational experiences. 1 2 About the Artist The SCAD Museum of Art presents Mildred Thompson: Although she was born in Jacksonville, Florida, Resonance, Selected Works from the 1990s, an Thompson spent most of her career in Germany and exhibition featuring artwork by prolific American artist France to be freer from the racial discrimination she Mildred Thompson (1936–2003). Over several decades, faced in the United States. She spent the last 15 years Thompson devoted her artistic practice to exploring of her life in Atlanta, Georgia, where she worked as the and expanding the language of nonrepresentational associate editor of ART PAPERS magazine and taught at abstraction. This exhibition presents a selection of Spelman College, Agnes Scott College and the Atlanta works from the 1990s that collectively represent her College of Art, while producing accomplished bodies highly developed visual language. of work in fine art and music. Her work is included in the permanent collections of the Smithsonian American Defined by dynamic mark-making, complex uses of Art Museum and Howard University in Washington, color and vast atmospheres, Thompson’s immersive D.C., and the Museum of Modern Art and the Brooklyn imagery created in the media of painting, drawing Museum in New York. and printmaking, is inspired by scientific theories and universal systems. As exemplified in the works on view, Mildred Thompson: Resonance, Selected Works from Thompson sought to interpret and visualize elements the 1990s is curated by Melissa Messina, interim and experiences invisible to the naked eye, with a executive director of the SCAD Museum of Art and particular affinity for the subjects of space and sound. Savannah exhibitions. In painting series such as Music of the Spheres, String Theory and Magnetic Fields, Thompson deftly and uniquely makes manifest ideas related to philosophy, physics, mathematics and astronomy in stylistic improvisations of lasting resonance. With the renewed curatorial and academic interest in the African-American contribution to the history of abstraction, Mildred Thompson: Resonance, Selected Works from the 1990s, presented in the Walter O. Evans Center for African American Studies, is a remarkable opportunity to expand this dialogue by celebrating the work of an under-recognized historical figure. Left: Mildred Thompson c. 1960, courtesy of the Mildred Thompson Estate, Atlanta, Georgia. 3 4 About the Curriculum Guide SCAD curriculum guides provide learning opportunities This Mildred Thompson guide explores the artist’s that fulfill the requirements of National Core Arts abstract paintings, prints and drawings from the 1990s Standards and are designed for use within the museum’s and illuminates her interpretation of the unseen world exhibition spaces and in classrooms. The guides enhance in physics. Thompson’s artworks provide the foundation understanding of art and design through investigations for activities inspired by expressive abstraction and the that reveal relevant personal, historical and cultural universal harmonies found within art, science and music. connections while promoting cross-disciplinary links necessary for today’s innovative careers. Recognizing the guides’ high standard of quality, the American Alliance of Museums’ 2015 Museum Publications Design Competition awarded first place in the education category to the SCAD curriculum guide for the exhibition Divine Comedy: Heaven, Purgatory and Hell Revisited by Contemporary African Artists. Left: Mildred Thompson, Heliocentric III, 1993 National Core Arts Standards are listed on page 16. Highlighted glossary terms may be found on page 18. Additional learning resources are located in the Curriculum Connections section on pages 20–21. Full artist image credits are recorded on page 22. 5 1 Explore emotional energy in lines Grades K-2 “The working together of the mind, the eye, the hand, and the controlled freedom of exploring