Affirmative Action Art: Just Copy a Dead White Male

snapped shot * technical difficulties

However, I will add that there is not a single online source that I've been able to find references Watusi (Hard Edges) as being a "study" of Matisse's prior work—Merely that she declared that, "If that old man can do it, then so could I"—which isn't usually considered to be how you "study" something.

Alma Thomas, Watusi (Hard Edge), 1963: A prominent abstract painter of the 19...

Alma Thomas, Watusi (Hard Edge), 1963: A prominent abstract painter of the 1960s and 1970s and the first African-American woman to have a solo art exhibition at New York's Whitney Museum. Born in Columbus in 1891, racist attitudes and a poor education system for African-Americans at that time hampered her childhood, but she excelled at architectural drawing.

Henri Matisse - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Le Bateau (1954) (This gouache created a minor stir when the MoMA mistakenly displayed it upside-down for 47 days in 1961.[20])

Henri Matisse - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Afterwards, he started using a wheelchair. Until his death he would be cared for by a Russian woman, Lydia Delektorskaya, formerly one of his models. With the aid of assistants he set about creating cut paper collages, often on a large scale, called gouaches d馗oup駸. His Blue Nudes series feature prime examples of this technique he called "painting with scissors"; they demonstrate the ability to bring his eye for colour and geometry to a new medium of utter simplicity, but with playful and delightful power.

Michelle Malkin » Do the Watusi: Art, imitation, and the Obamas

Do the Watusi: Art, imitation, and the Obamas
By Michelle Malkin • October 8, 2009 05:49 PM

Yesterday, we chuckled over the indecision-themed “word art” that the Obamas chose to hang in the White House.

Today, a Free Republic poster notices another of the Obamas’ curious art choices: “Watusi (Hard Edge),” by Alma Thomas, who is described by the NYTimes as “a longtime Washington resident who is an African-American painter.”

Alma Thomas’s “Watusi” (1963) looks to be an almost exact reproduction of a 1953 piece by Henri Matisse titled “L’Escargot:”

Museum of Modern Art hangs Matisse's Le Bateau upside down for 47 days December 4 in History

December 4, 1961 in History
Event:
Museum of Modern Art hangs Matisse's Le Bateau upside down for 47 days

Posted by Vanderleun at October 8, 2009 6:44 PM