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Alma W. Thomas: Curatorial Perspectives

In this panel discussion, three curators will discuss the different approaches they have pursued in their exhibitions featuring the remarkable Washington, D.C. artist and educator Alma W. Thomas.

From the mid-1960s through the late 1970s, Alma W. Thomas created a remarkable body of work – abstract paintings that changed our understanding of art. But her contributions to art and arts education and the Washington, D.C. community went far beyond the paintings for which she is best known.

In this panel, three curators will discuss the different approaches they have pursued in their exhibitions featuring Alma Thomas, which range from an expansive view of Thomas’ life and varied contributions; to a focused deep dive into her nature-inspired abstract compositions; to her enduring legacy in arts education and D.C.’s strong tradition of Black art educators over the past century. Attendees will gain a nuanced understanding of this iconic artist’s varied contributions and approaches.

The panel will be moderated by Jonathan P. Binstock, Vradenburg Director and CEO of The Phillips Collection—which hosted the nationally touring exhibition “Alma W. Thomas: Everything is Beautiful” in 2021-2022. Joining Binstock will be Melissa Ho from the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Samir Meghelli from the Smithsonian Institution's Anacostia Community Museum, and Jonathan Frederick Walz from The Columbus Museum in Columbus, Georgia and curator of the DC Public Library Exhibit "Let This World Be Beautiful: Celebrating the Life and Art of Alma Thomas."

This discussion is part of the DC Public Library Exhibit Let This World Be Beautiful: Celebrating the Life and Art of Alma Thomas.

Presenter Biographies: 

Dr. Jonathan P. Binstock (moderator) is currently the Vradenburg Director and CEO of The Phillips Collection following eight years as the Mary W. and Donald R. Clark Director of the Memorial Art Gallery (MAG) of the University of Rochester in New York. During his tenure in Rochester, Binstock led an expansion and diversification of the museum’s permanent collection, special exhibition program, public engagement and outreach efforts, and audience, as well as a significant increase in the museum’s annual budget. Prior to Memorial Art Gallery, Binstock served as the Senior Vice President for Modern and Contemporary Art in the Art Advisory & Finance group of Citi Private Bank. He was Curator of Contemporary Art at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, from 2000-07, and Assistant Curator at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia from 1998-2000.

Melissa Ho is the curator of twentieth-century art at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. She joined the museum's staff in September 2016. Ho’s research, acquisitions, and exhibitions focus on art made since 1945. She is particularly interested in studying the connections between artistic practice and social and historical conditions, as well as debates surrounding abstraction, conceptualism and experimental art. Ho organized the exhibition Artists Respond: American Art and the Vietnam War, 1965-1975 (2019) and most recently curated Composing Color: Paintings by Alma Thomas, an exhibition drawn from the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s collection, on view through June 2, 2024.

Samir Meghelli is a historian, writer, educator, and serves as Senior Curator at the Smithsonian Institution's Anacostia Community Museum in Washington, D.C. He is also a Visiting Scholar-in-Residence at American University’s Metropolitan Policy Center in the School of Public Affairs. Dr. Meghelli has two decades of experience in the fields of public history and the public humanities. His research, teaching, and curatorial work have focused on social movements, urban history, and cultural history. His recent exhibitions include A Right to the City (2018-2020) which explored the history (and contemporary dynamics) of neighborhood change and activism in Washington, D.C. He also led the research and curation of a recent outdoor and indoor exhibition about food justice issues, Food for the People: Eating and Activism in Greater Washington (on view 2021-2022), which received the Smithsonian Award for Excellence in Exhibitions. His new exhibition, A Bold and Beautiful Vision: A Century of Black Arts Education in Washington D.C., 1900-2000, opens March 23, 2024.

Jonathan Frederick Walz was appointed in 2016 as the Director of Curatorial Affairs and Curator of American Art at The Columbus Museum in Columbus, Georgia, Alma Thomas’s hometown. He received an MA and a PhD from the Department of Art History and Archaeology at the University of Maryland, College Park. He spent the academic year 2009–2010 at the David C. Driskell Center as one of six graduate student curators for the exhibition Embodied: Black Identities in American Art from the Yale University Art Gallery, which appeared at the Driskell Center and Yale University Art Gallery and was reviewed in the New York Times. As a proponent of object-based study and public history, Walz has over 25 years of experience in art museums, including more than a decade of service at the National Gallery of Art, Washington. He co-curated the award-winning nationally traveling exhibition Alma W. Thomas: Everything Is Beautiful, which appeared at The Phillips Collection in 2021–2022 and most recently served as guest curator for Let This World Be Beautiful at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library.

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