Ablaze With Color: A Story of Painter Alma Thomas by Jeanne Walker Harvey

Alma was a girl who loved "the sparkling colors of nature": the "pastel purple violets and crimson roses crowned by bright green banana leaves". She always enjoyed being outside because the colours of nature made her feel good. 

Unlike her sisters who enjoyed cooking or sewing, Alma loved creating things, like bowls and cups she made from the red clay near her home. Her mother designed colourful dresses while her aunts painted.

But Alma and her sisters were not allowed to attend the nearby school which was for white people only. They also were not allowed into the local library or the museum. Alma's parents countered this by filling their home with books and inviting teachers into their home to talk about various subjects. 

Eventually, Alma's family decided to leave Georgia for Washington, D.C. where there were more opportunities for Black Americans.

After studying art in college, Alma worked at bringing art to the young people in her neighborhood.

In her spare time, Alma began working on her own painting and soon developed a new style for her artwork. She painted in "dashes and dabs", using "circles and stripes" and with lots of colour. Her paintings reflected how nature made her feel inside. Eventually her artwork was exhibited and as her reputation grew, the Whitney, a famous New York City art museum showed her work.

One of Alma's paintings, was chosen by the first Black President of the United States to hang in the White House. Sadly,  Alma didn't live to experience this honour, 

Discussion 

Ablaze with Color tells readers about African-American painter, Alma Thomas. She was born in Columbus, Georgia on September 22, 1891. She grew up with her parents and three younger sisters in an Victorian house situated on a hill overlooking their town. As a child, Alma enjoyed the many colours of nature and dreamed of becoming an architect some day.

In 1907, her family moved to Washington, D.C. to escape the racial violence in the south. She eventually enrolled in Howard University and was the first graduate of the fine arts program in 1924, At this time she began teaching art in a junior high school, organizing student art shows and lectures for the students. She would go on to teach art for thirty-five years.

Her teaching career allowed Alma to work on her own art. Her former professor and mentor, Professor James V. Herring encouraged Alma to try abstract art. It wasn't until she retired that Alma was able to fully develop her own style and work on her art full-time.

 While teaching Alma earned her Masters in Education from Columbia University in 1934. In the 1950's she studied art at the American University in Washington, focusing on colour and abstract art. But it wasn't until she was seventy-five years old that Alma first exhibited her abstract art in and exhibition at Howard in 1966.

In Ablaze With Color, Walker Harvey focuses on Alma's interest in colour, her use of it in her art and how nature influenced her work. The informative text matches Loveis Wise's richly coloured illustrations with descriptions such as, "quivering yellow leaves", "the warm glow of sunsets", "moist red clay" and "sizzling sun" - that convey how Alma saw the world around her. As Walker Harvey describes Alma's development of her own style, the illustrations mimic the colours of her paintings with the use of dabs of  dark greens, bright pinks and yellows, and rich reds.

The Author's Note at the back, further explains Alma Thomas's use of colour, while the Illustrator's Note provides images of her work and the painting titled, Resurrection that hangs in the White House Old Family Dining Room. A detailed Timeline featuring important events in the life of Alma Thomas and in the United States can also be found at the back.

Book Details:

Ablaze With Color: A Story of Painter Alma Thomas by Jeanne Walker Harvey
New York: HarperCollins Children's Books     2022