Etude in Blue

Educated at Howard University and Columbia University, Alma Thomas was associated with the Washington Color School, which also included her contemporaries such as Morris Louis and Sam Gilliam. Thomas was a champion of abstraction as an expressive art form that she believed could transcend specific politics, and chose her imagery and palette in repsonse to nature and scientific phenomena and advancements. Etude in Blue exemplifies a transition from her earlier style of the 1950s, with curving lines and sweeping marks rather than the choppy, mosiac-like swatches of color she developed in the mid 1960s and expanded upon in the 1970s. Etude in Blue also highlights Thomas?s profound exploration of color, with its dominant muted blue palette and subtle areas of bright oranges and yellows that move the eye through the composition.