Autumn Leaves Fluttering in the Breeze

Small broken patches of orange, red, yellow, and blue crowd the surface, packed so tightly that the canvas seems to vibrate with movement. The piece is called Autumn Leaves Fluttering in the Breeze, painted in 1973 using acrylic, and it is held at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, which received it from the artist's own bequest. The painter, Alma Thomas (1891–1978), was associated with the Washington Color School. Looking closely, the shapes seem scattered without any single focal point, as if countless small fragments of color were set loose at once across the whole field, giving the composition a restless, airborne quality that pulls the eye in many directions rather than toward one center.