ACQUISITION HIGHLIGHTS 52 ALMA THOMAS WAS 82 WHEN SHE PAINTED Morning in the Bowl of Night, which SCMA acquired in April 2018. The painting showcases Thomas’ charac- teristic and bold approach to abstraction and anchors SCMA’s commitment to collecting the work of artists in the United States and around the globe who embraced abstraction during the social, political and technological transformations of the mid-20th century. Thomas’ paintings were often inspired by the patterns and shapes created by sunlight as it filters through leaves and flowers, and by views of Earth as seen from space. Here, mosaic-like bright, primary colors and geometric royal blue shapes cover the surface of the painting from edge to edge. Attesting to Thomas’ interest in Islamic art, the title refers to a verse attributed to the Persian mathematician, astronomer and poet Omar Khayyam (1048–1131) as translated into English in 1859: “Awake! for Morning in the Bowl of Night Has flung the Stone that puts the Stars to Flight” Born September 22, 1891, in Columbus, Georgia, Alma Thomas moved with her parents and three younger sisters to Washington, D.C., in 1907, shortly after the 1906 Atlanta race riot. Thomas was the first student to earn a degree in fine arts from Howard University. She taught art for 35 years at Shaw Junior High School in Washington, D.C., and received her master’s in edu- cation from Columbia University in 1934. Thomas was active in the art movement known as the Washington Color School and a founder of the Barnett Aden Gallery in Washington, D.C., a black-owned, integrated gallery in a then-segregated city. Thomas had several solo exhibitions during her lifetime, including at the Carl Van Vechten Gallery at Fisk University in 1971 and the Whit- ney Museum of American Art in 1972. The latter was the first time the Whitney, which opened in 1930, organized a solo exhibition for a female African American artist. ABOVE: Alma Thomas. American, 1891–1978. Morning in the Bowl of Night, 1973. Acrylic on canvas. Purchased with the Hillyer-Mather-Tryon Fund; the Madeleine H. Russell, class of 1937, Fund; the Kathleen Compton Sherrerd, class of 1954, Acquisition Fund for American Art; and the Dorothy C. Miller, class of 1925, Fund HIGHLIGHT ALMA THOMAS’ MORNING IN THE BOWL OF NIGHT