Born in Yakima, Washington,she was the daughter James & Gertrude Johnson.Thelma grew up in Boise,Idaho,Pendleton,Oregon and Portland,Oregon and graduated from Washington High School,in Portland.Thelma started painting at 9 years old and at 17,she gained national recognition when her painting titled "A Priest" won honorable mention at the Harmon Foundation exhibition in New York City in 1929.In 1935,she married Romaine Streat in Portland and in 1939;she worked with Mexican muralist Diego Rivera on his Pan American Unity mural in San Francisco.Thelma also headed the children's Education Project to introduce American kids to the contributions of African Americans through a series of colorful murals.
Thelma gained prominence in the 1940s for her art,performance and work to foster inter-cultural understanding and appreciation.Thelma became the first African-American woman to have a painting exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) in New York in 1942.By 1947,she was one of only four African American abstract painters to have had solo shows in New York.The other three were Romare Bearden,Rose Piper,and Norman Lewis.In 1949,she became the first American woman to have her own television program in France.In addition Thelma traveled to Haiti,Mexico and Canada to study the traditional dance and culture of indigenous people.She realized that prejudice and bigotry are learned and usually during childhood.So,throughout the 1940s & 50s,she tirelessly performed dances,songs,and folk tales from many cultures to thousands of youngsters across Europe,Canada,Mexico,and the United States in an effort to introduce them to the beauty and value of all cultures.In 1950,Thelma peformed a dance recital a Buckingingham Palace for the King &Queen of England.Her talents included painting,textile design,book illustration,interpretive and ethnic dance,singing,folklore,teaching art and multi-culturalism.
Her paintings have appeared in exhibits at such prestigious museums and galleries as Museum: of Modern Art (MoMA),THE American Contemporary Art Gallery,the Honolulu Academy of Art,the San Francisco Museum of Art,(Vincent Price's) The Little Gallery,the DeYoung Memorial Museum,City of Paris Gallery,Art Insitute of Chicago,the Albany Institute of the History of art,the Kenkeleba Gallery and the Portland Art Museum.Her most famous painting,"Rabbit Man," is part of the MoMa's permanent collection.Many world personalities who have owned Thema's work including singer Roland Hayes,artist Diego Riveria,actress Fanny Brice,dancer Kathrine Dunham,and actress Paulette Goddard.Thelma founded Children's City near Honolulu with her second husband,John Edgar Kline,to introduce children to art and to the value of cultural diversity.
Many of her portraits presented men,women,girls,and boys of every color,age,shape, and sizewith dignity.Her was sometimes controversial.In 1947 the Los Angeles times reported that Thelma was threatened by the Ku Klux Klan for her painting called "Death of a Negro Sailor," portraying an African American sailor dying after risking his life abroad to protect the democratic rights he was denied at home.Thelma's response was that a program showing,not only African American tribulations,also African American contributions to the nation's wealth needed.Soon after she initiated a visual education program called "The Negro in History" Here through a series of murals depicting the contributions of people of African descent,panels showed African Americans in industry,agriculture,medicine,science,meatpacking,and transportation.There was even a panel on the contributions of African American women.
No comments:
Post a Comment