Episode No. 510 of The Modern Art Notes Podcast features curator Seth Feman and historian Bernard L. Herman.
Along with Jonathan Frederick Walz, Feman is the co-curator of “Alma W. Thomas: Everything is Beautiful,” a retrospective at the Chrysler Museum of Art in Norfolk, Va. through October 3. The exhibition includes about 100 works, including paintings on canvas and paper, theatrical designs, and more. From the Chrysler it will travel to the Phillips Collection in Washington, the Frist Art Museum in Nashville, and to Thomas’s hometown Columbus (Ga.) Museum. The exhibition’s outstanding catalogue is now the go-to monograph on the artist. It was published by the Chrysler and Columbus in association with Yale University Press. Indiebound and Amazon offer it for about $65.
On the second segment, Herman discusses the work of Ronald Lockett. Lockett’s work is on view at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Fayetteville, Ark. through October 11 in “What I Know: Gifts from Gordon W. Bailey,” and in “In Dialogue: Artist, Mentor, Friend: Ronald Lockett and Thornton Dial Sr.” at the Georgia Museum of Art in Athens through November 28. Herman curated the 2016-17 Lockett retrospective “Fever Within: The Art of Ronald Lockett” and edited the exhibition’s superb catalogue, which was published by University of North Carolina Press. Indiebound and Amazon offer it for $36-45.
Instagram: Seth Feman, Bernard Herman, Tyler Green.
Air date: August 12, 2021.

Ronald Freeman, Alma Thomas’s bedroom, ca. 1973.

Wasyl Szkodzinsky or Ron Tunison, Alma W. Thomas and an unidentified woman in the kitchen studio, 1972-73.

Alma W. Thomas, Red Azaleas Singing and Dancing Rock and Roll Music, 1976.

Henri Matisse, Luxe, calme et volupté, 1904-05.

Alma W. Thomas, Watusi (Hard Edge), 1963.

Alma W. Thomas, Cumulus, 1972.

Alma W. Thomas, Mars Reflection, 1972.

Alma W. Thomas, Red Roses Sonata, 1972.

Alma W. Thomas, Etude in Blue, 1966.

Ronald Lockett, Wolves Look Back, 1993.

Ronald Lockett, Rebirth, 1987.

Ronald Lockett, Traps, ca. 1989.

Ronald Lockett, Holocaust, 1988.

Ronald Lockett, Smoke-Filled Sky (You Can Burn a Man’s House but Not His Dreams), 1990.

Ronald Lockett, Poison River, 1988.

Thornton Dial, Untitled (Tribute to Ronald Lockett), 1998.