Poems for Alma Thomas
An excerpt from Alexis Pauline Gumbs’s book on the late painter, plus reviews of new titles by Sophie Lewis and Dana Mashoian Walrath.
Alexis Pauline Gumbs, a poet and scholar, penned a book examining Alma Thomas, the celebrated artist. Gumbs perceived Thomas's paintings as braids, heirloom corn, and the lineage of history. In her excerpt "Primary: After and With Alma Thomas," Gumbs draws on historian Richard J. Powell's writing to interpret Thomas's "color fields as cornrows," connecting her work to the art of sistering in Black diasporic visual culture.
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