Person sitting in front of a table with curly hair, wearing a silvery dress, a large ring on hand resting on the table and has other hand resting on her cheek as they look at the viewer

Miller Lecture in Art History with Dr. Tiffany E. Barber

5pm
Carroll Room at the Smith College Campus Center

Data Consciousness and Luminous Abstraction 

Public reception to follow.

This lecture brings W. E. B. Du Bois's pioneering data visualizations into dialogue with Alma Thomas's luminous abstractions, tracing a shared commitment to visualizing Black life beyond statistical reduction or representational constraint. Together, Du Bois and Thomas reveal how data can function as both evidence and imagination, expanding the possibilities of aesthetic practice, historical interpretation, and collective liberation.

Banner on a brick building with glass door opening on left. Banner reads Composing Color: Paintings by Alma Thomas from the Smithsonian American Art Museum with exhibition dates July 24, 2026–January 10, 2027, scma.smith.edu

Stroller Tour of Composing Color: Paintings by Alma Thomas from the Smithsonian Museum of American Art

10–11:00am
Smith College Museum of Art

A special visit for caregivers and children under two. Meet other grown-ups, enjoy conversation about art and activities led by art museum and Northampton Public Schools Early Childhood Center staff. We'll be the only ones in the galleries during these special hours, with no worries about gurgles, gagas and crying over the art -- from the adults or the little! This tour will focus on the new SCMA exhibition, Composing Color: Paintings by Alma Thomas from the Smithsonian Museum of American Art.

Two people side by side with image of an abstract painting in red above a close up image of a red flower

SCMA Conversations: Alma Thomas and the Language of Landscape

12:15pm
Virtual

Join SCMA curator Emma Chubb and Lily Carone, landscape curator at the Botanic Garden of Smith College, for a virtual SCMA Conversations program exploring connections between Alma Thomas’s vibrant abstract paintings and landscape design. Through conversation and close looking, they’ll examine how rhythm, pattern, color, and the natural world shape both gardens and abstraction.

Wooded landscape painting in forest with people and path

Painting Nature: 19th-century American and French Landscapes

Ongoing

Painting Nature: 19th-century American and French Landscapes brings together a group of paintings from three influential 19th-century movements: the Hudson River School, the Barbizon School, and French Impressionism. Though each developed independently, all shared a deep engagement with nature at a time of rapid industrialization and urban growth. 

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