Excerpt from The Early Career of Yvonne Thomas and the Complexed Squares Series (1963–1973)
By Lisa N. Peters, Ph.D.
A committed painter throughout her life, Yvonne Thomas (1913–2009) exemplifies a woman artist who empowered herself through her work. While drawing from her mentors—Robert Motherwell and Hans Hofmann—and the stimulation around her in the New York art world, she pursued her own ideas, using the language of color as a perceptual, metaphorical, and emotive force. Maintaining a practice that was vital and inquisitive, Thomas embraced change, in the understanding that “reinventing interpretations of reality” have always played a major role in art. The show this catalogue accompanies, Complexed Squares, exemplifies her pursuit of such reinvention, in works of subtlety, humor, exploration, and vivacity.
From Nice to New York, 1913–1936
The only child of Etienne and Victorine Navello, the artist was
born Yvonne Armande Navello in Nice, France, on October 1, 1913. Her
family’s surname derived from a time when Nice was part of Italy. The sun-blessed coastal city was steeped in history, but it was also a cosmopolitan cross-roads, drawing many modernist artists—Henri Matisse settled there in 1918. Culturally, Yvonne was part of that world. In school in Nice as a demi-pensionnaire (a weekly boarder), Yvonne made the decision to become an artist.
Biography by Lisa N. Peters, Ph.D.
Published by Berry Campbell
Designed by Mark Robinson
Printed by Meridian, Rhode Island
