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December 26, 2007
Ten faves: Alma Thomas' Evening Glow
A couple of months ago, fired up by Dave Hickey's declaration of ten favorite paintings in The Believer magazine, I resolved to post my own ten favorite paintings. In keeping with the more-or-less focus of this blog, they'll all be from about 1880 forward. Here goes...
This is Alma Thomas' 1972 painting Evening Glow. It's in the collection of the Baltimore Museum of Art, where it's been on near-constant view for the last 10 years. (I think it's a little lighter than this JPEG, but so it goes.) The BMA is full of paintings that rank among my very favorites -- all those Matisses! -- but ever since I briefly lived in Baltimore this is the painting that I've most looked forward to seeing there.
Everywhere I've seen Thomas on view in the last few years I've thought her work has held up well. About a year ago the Hirshhorn installed a gallery of Thomas and Agnes Martin. If I had a list of 'best permanent collection installations of 2006,' it would have been at the top of the list. Works by both artists -- and the Hirsh has superb Thomas and superb Martin -- stared each other down, holding their ground.
Posted December 26, 2007 3:10 PM
