Select An Item

COMPOSING COLOR: THE WORLD OF ALMA THOMAS

American artist Alma Thomas once wrote “Love comes by looking.” In this multi-session course, take a closer look at the artist, her art, and her world. Learn about Thomas’s creative philosophies and inspiration, fall in love with her eye for color and pattern, and dive into the deeper context of her long life and impactful career.

Session #1 – Alma Thomas: The Creative Age

Alma Thomas’s long life and late-career breakthroughs prove that creativity gets better with time. Like other artists who were prolific well into older age, Thomas’s creativity dynamically evolved in her later decades. In this course session, we’ll celebrate Thomas’s vibrant abstractions from the 1950s-1970s and consider her journey and others’ who worked well into their seventies, eighties, and beyond.

Session #2 – Alma’s World

Alma Thomas’s life was as rich and complex as her paintings. The third session of this course focuses on the larger context in which Thomas lived and worked, paying particular attention to the artistic, social, and political movements that influenced Thomas’s development as an artist.

Session #3 – The Meaning and Making of Color

For Alma Thomas, the “spirit and living soul of the world” was manifest through colors. She used art’s most luscious resource brilliantly, concentrating on what she called “beauty and happiness,” rather than urgencies of “inhumanity.” This session offers deep context for how and why artists throughout history have found, manipulated, coded, and celebrated color to achieve staggeringly diverse ends. It’s the ultimate shape-shifter. Color produces happiness—and it also registers power, privilege, spirituality, symbolism, technologies, emotion, and reason. With color at the forefront, artists create endless pathways to expression and offer us inexhaustible insights.

Presented by Stella Paul, writer and educator, author of Chromaphilia: The Story of Color in Art

COMPOSING COLOR: THE WORLD OF ALMA THOMAS

American artist Alma Thomas once wrote “Love comes by looking.” In this multi-session course, take a closer look at the artist, her art, and her world. Learn about Thomas’s creative philosophies and inspiration, fall in love with her eye for color and pattern, and dive into the deeper context of her long life and impactful career.

Session #1 – Alma Thomas: The Creative Age

Alma Thomas’s long life and late-career breakthroughs prove that creativity gets better with time. Like other artists who were prolific well into older age, Thomas’s creativity dynamically evolved in her later decades. In this course session, we’ll celebrate Thomas’s vibrant abstractions from the 1950s-1970s and consider her journey and others’ who worked well into their seventies, eighties, and beyond.

COMPOSING COLOR: THE WORLD OF ALMA THOMAS

American artist Alma Thomas once wrote “Love comes by looking.” In this multi-session course, take a closer look at the artist, her art, and her world. Learn about Thomas’s creative philosophies and inspiration, fall in love with her eye for color and pattern, and dive into the deeper context of her long life and impactful career.

Session #1 – Alma Thomas: The Creative Age

Alma Thomas’s long life and late-career breakthroughs prove that creativity gets better with time. Like other artists who were prolific well into older age, Thomas’s creativity dynamically evolved in her later decades. In this course session, we’ll celebrate Thomas’s vibrant abstractions from the 1950s-1970s and consider her journey and others’ who worked well into their seventies, eighties, and beyond.

COMPOSING COLOR: THE WORLD OF ALMA THOMAS

American artist Alma Thomas once wrote “Love comes by looking.” In this multi-session course, take a closer look at the artist, her art, and her world. Learn about Thomas’s creative philosophies and inspiration, fall in love with her eye for color and pattern, and dive into the deeper context of her long life and impactful career.

Session #2 – Alma’s World

Alma Thomas’s life was as rich and complex as her paintings. The third session of this course focuses on the larger context in which Thomas lived and worked, paying particular attention to the artistic, social, and political movements that influenced Thomas’s development as an artist.

COMPOSING COLOR: THE WORLD OF ALMA THOMAS

American artist Alma Thomas once wrote “Love comes by looking.” In this multi-session course, take a closer look at the artist, her art, and her world. Learn about Thomas’s creative philosophies and inspiration, fall in love with her eye for color and pattern, and dive into the deeper context of her long life and impactful career.

Session #2 – Alma’s World

Alma Thomas’s life was as rich and complex as her paintings. The third session of this course focuses on the larger context in which Thomas lived and worked, paying particular attention to the artistic, social, and political movements that influenced Thomas’s development as an artist.

COMPOSING COLOR: THE WORLD OF ALMA THOMAS

American artist Alma Thomas once wrote “Love comes by looking.” In this multi-session course, take a closer look at the artist, her art, and her world. Learn about Thomas’s creative philosophies and inspiration, fall in love with her eye for color and pattern, and dive into the deeper context of her long life and impactful career.

Session #3 – The Meaning and Making of Color

For Alma Thomas, the “spirit and living soul of the world” was manifest through colors. She used art’s most luscious resource brilliantly, concentrating on what she called “beauty and happiness,” rather than urgencies of “inhumanity.” This session offers deep context for how and why artists throughout history have found, manipulated, coded, and celebrated color to achieve staggeringly diverse ends. It’s the ultimate shape-shifter. Color produces happiness—and it also registers power, privilege, spirituality, symbolism, technologies, emotion, and reason. With color at the forefront, artists create endless pathways to expression and offer us inexhaustible insights.

Presented by Stella Paul, writer and educator, author of Chromaphilia: The Story of Color in Art

COMPOSING COLOR: THE WORLD OF ALMA THOMAS

American artist Alma Thomas once wrote “Love comes by looking.” In this multi-session course, take a closer look at the artist, her art, and her world. Learn about Thomas’s creative philosophies and inspiration, fall in love with her eye for color and pattern, and dive into the deeper context of her long life and impactful career.

Session #3 – The Meaning and Making of Color

For Alma Thomas, the “spirit and living soul of the world” was manifest through colors. She used art’s most luscious resource brilliantly, concentrating on what she called “beauty and happiness,” rather than urgencies of “inhumanity.” This session offers deep context for how and why artists throughout history have found, manipulated, coded, and celebrated color to achieve staggeringly diverse ends. It’s the ultimate shape-shifter. Color produces happiness—and it also registers power, privilege, spirituality, symbolism, technologies, emotion, and reason. With color at the forefront, artists create endless pathways to expression and offer us inexhaustible insights.

Presented by Stella Paul, writer and educator, author of Chromaphilia: The Story of Color in Art

Give to the Denver Art Museum's Annual Fund

Your 100% tax-deductible contribution supports inspiring art connections, powerful artist collaborations, community-minded programming at the Denver Art Museum. During these unprecedented times, your donation helps the museum reimagine how we connect in person and online through a series of new opportunities for visitors of all ages. Thank you for your support of the Denver Art Museum's annual fund.

Access for two to lectures, programming and exclusive enrichment events.

The Museum Friends membership add-on offers DAM members an opportunity to deepen their support and broaden their horizons with a community of like-minded art aficionados. Denver Art Museum Friends take part in educational activities, lectures, exclusive tours, and more.

Access for one to lectures, programming and exclusive enrichment events.

The Museum Friends membership add-on offers DAM members an opportunity to deepen their support and broaden their horizons with a community of like-minded art aficionados. Denver Art Museum Friends take part in educational activities, lectures, exclusive tours, and more.

This is an in-person ticket.

To purchase a virtual ticket click here.

This presentation complements the exhibition The Life and Art of Tokio Ueyama, on display in the western American art permanent galleries on the 7th floor of the Martin Building until June 1, 2025. Curator of the exhibition JR Henneman will provide an overview of the artist and his life, including his studies at prestigious American institutions and his travels abroad. She will also consider his artwork, which features landscape, portraiture, and still life, and acknowledge the incarceration of Japanese people in the US during World War II between 1942 and 1945. At that time, Ueyama was forcibly removed from his home in southern California and sent to the Granada Relocation Center, now known as the Amache National Historic Site, in southeast Colorado. This presentation will consider how the DAM discovered and interpreted the artwork of this overlooked American artist and how we sensitively tell this challenging World War II history.

The museum’s Sensory-Friendly Mornings is a program for kids with neurodiversity or sensory processing disorders and their families to visit the museum in a safe and fun way. The museum will open early, dim the lights, and provide tools to aid and guide a sensory-friendly experience for the whole family.

This is a virtual ticket.

To purchase an in-person ticket click here.

This presentation complements the exhibition The Life and Art of Tokio Ueyama, on display in the western American art permanent galleries on the 7th floor of the Martin Building until June 1, 2025. Curator of the exhibition JR Henneman will provide an overview of the artist and his life, including his studies at prestigious American institutions and his travels abroad. She will also consider his artwork, which features landscape, portraiture, and still life, and acknowledge the incarceration of Japanese people in the US during World War II between 1942 and 1945. At that time, Ueyama was forcibly removed from his home in southern California and sent to the Granada Relocation Center, now known as the Amache National Historic Site, in southeast Colorado. This presentation will consider how the DAM discovered and interpreted the artwork of this overlooked American artist and how we sensitively tell this challenging World War II history.

Donations to this fund are invested by the DAM foundation with the intention to grow the fund in value over time. This fund provides an annual distribution based on the Foundation's policy.  Distributed funds are used to acquire new artwork for the DAM.

The Museum regularly reconciles expenditures made from distributed funds to ensure that they are allocated as intended.

The basic benefits including unlimited free general admission for one for an entire year, plus two complimentary one-time use general admission guest passes.

Please select the date you would like to visit the Denver Art Museum. Your tickets will be valid for the entire day.

The basic benefits including unlimited free general admission for one for an entire year, plus two free general admission guest passes

The basic benefits including unlimited free general admission for two for an entire year, plus two complimentary one-time use general admission guest passes.

Corporate membership packages allow you to curate the benefits your company receives at every level of support. From access and networking, to complimentary event space and VIP invitations, your company can have it all or select only what means the most to employees, clients, and stakeholders. To learn more about corporate membership options and benefits, please contact us at CorporatePartnerships@denverartmuseum.org.

Every Corporate Membership Includes:

• Corporate and Executive membership cards for free general admission
• Corporate special exhibition ticket price available to all employees
• 10% discount in the museum shop
• Recognition in the museum's Annual Report
• Access to virtual programming and art making activities
• Bimonthly member magazine On & Off the Wall and Beyond the Walls patron newsletter
• News and updates through exclusive member communications

Engage with art, explore onsite activities, and experience exhibitions on view all while enjoying free general admission! Advanced reservations are always recommended, but not required.

Free days in 2024 include:

• Tuesday, January 9
• Saturday, January 27
• Tuesday, February 13
• Tuesday, March 12
• Sunday, March 24
• Tuesday, April 9
• Sunday, April 28 Día del Niño
• Tuesday, May 14
• Tuesday, June 11
• Tuesday, July 9
• Sunday, July 21
• Tuesday, August 13
• Sunday, September 7
• Tuesday, September 10
• Tuesday, October 8
• Saturday, November 2
• Tuesday, November 12
• Tuesday, December 10

Please be aware general admission does not include entry to ticketed exhibitions.