A young scholar recently reminded me of an essay @lynne_bias and I co-authored in 2015 for @walkerartcenter Superscript Series, entitled "Criticism's Blackout." The essay was in response to a white male critic, who reduced Alma Thomas’ work, as a painter, to her domestic studio environment, and deemed one of her abstractions; "a lovely middle-ground of just-good-enough painting..” Through the mission of @arts.black, Jessica and I responded to the analysis: It would be comforting to ignore the various tropes utilized by this “seasoned” critic to discuss Thomas’s work. Haven’t we concluded that comparison is the laziest form of criticism? Never mind the fact that Thomas’s life was anything but domestic as an educator working in Washington, DC. Never mind the fact that the history of Blackness and domesticity, particularly in the US, are incredibly fraught. And while critique is undoubtedly, very subjective, we wonder: how might this assessment of Thomas’s work look different if written by a Black art critic? How might rigorous critique imbued with certain cultural nuances look when compared with this reduction? • • • Pictured here: Alma Woodsey Thomas Still Life (Mexico), 1954 Oil on panel (c) California African American Museum (@caaminla). Alma Thomas was an abstractionist, educator, home-studio painter, and the first graduate of @howard1867 's Fine Arts program.