Black History Month: 1000-piece Alma Thomas The Eclipse Jigsaw Puzzle

“The use of colour in my paintings is of paramount importance to me. Through colour I have sought to concentrate on beauty and happiness, rather than on man’s inhumanity to man.”

Celebrate the visionary and rule-breaking art of Alma Thomas with the colourful, shimmering abstract ‘The Eclipse’ painting-turned-puzzle. 

Forever colouring outside the lines, we celebrate Alma Thomas, the Godmother of Black Art. Alma Thomas was deeply invested in a project of beauty. Amid the challenges and discrimination that black women endure, Thomas turned the focus of her artistic output on creating canvases that dealt with beauty. 

“One of the things we couldn’t do was go into museums, let alone think of hanging our pictures there. My, times have changed. Just look at me now.”

Features:

• 1000-piece jigsaw puzzle on 2mm premium board
• The finished jigsaw puzzle measures 20” x 25”.
• Crafted from the highest resolution image taken of Alma Thomas, The Eclipse, acrylic on canvas, 1970 artwork
• High-quality 250 GSM matte art paper for superior colour, crisp details and no glare
• The pieces are precision-cut from thick 2mm cardboard to ensure a frustration-free fit with minimal puzzle dust
• Made from recycled cardboard and printed with vegetable-based ink, this famous art jigsaw puzzle is a safe and non-toxic product
• Includes resealable bag to store pieces between uses
• On SALE for a limited time only

No two people have the same reactions to her paintings. Some people are drawn in by the colour, some by the composition. Through sheer imagination, Alma Thomas fantasised about space exploration as a metaphor for Black liberation. When Apollo 11 landed on the moon, Thomas was inspired by the historic milestone influencing ‘The Eclipse’. Her paintings were not just her interpretations of celestial bodies and spaces but also her transformative space to imagine herself in a galactic elsewhere free of white supremacy.

Some art historians have likened these colourful marks to the tesserae in mosaics or stained glass. Thomas often used the term “beautify,” which to her didn’t just mean to make something pretty or nice; it had more gravity than that.

Despite the obstacles faced by being a Black woman in the 20th-century White male-dominated art scene, Thomas didn’t focus on racist and sexist oppression themes. Nature was her most compelling muse. She believed that nature, as well as art, was both gender and colour blind. Alma Thomas was the first Black woman to hold a solo exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art.