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This nearly square, abstract painting is filled with circles within circles, like nested rings, each of a single bright color against the ivory white of the canvas. Each ring is made up of a series of short, rectangular dashes, and some bands are narrower while others are a bit wider. The majority of the rings are crimson and brick red, and they are interspersed with bands of lapis blue, army green, and pale pink. One of two pumpkin-orange bands is the smallest, innermost ring at the center. There is one aqua-blue colored ring just inside a pale, shell-white ring, which is the first to get cropped by the edges of the canvas. A few red, green, and blue rings beyond the white band are only seen at the corners of the canvas.

Alma Thomas

Pansies in Washington, 1969

East Building, Upper Level — Gallery 407-C

Medium

acrylic on canvas

Dimensions

overall: 127 × 121.92 cm (50 × 48 in.)

Credit Line

Corcoran Collection (Gift of Vincent Melzac)

Accession Number

2015.19.144

Artists / Makers

Alma Thomas (artist) American, 1891 - 1978

Image Use

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Provenance

Vincent Melzac [1914-1989], Arlington, Virginia; gift 1972 to the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington; acquired 2015 by the National Gallery of Art.

Associated Names

Corcoran Gallery of Art
Melzac, Vincent

Exhibition History

1972: Alma W. Thomas: Retrospective Exhibition, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, 8 September - 15 October 1972, no. 15.

1972: Washington Room, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, April - June 1972.

1979: Women Artists from Washington Collections, University of Maryland, 1979.

2010: Abstraction from the Collection, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, 2010.

2011: Washington Color and Light, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, 2010-2011, no catalogue.

2021: Alma W. Thomas: Everything Is Beautiful, Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk; The Phillips Collection, Washington, 2021 - 2022, no. 160, repro.