American abstract artist Mildred Thompson (1936 – 2003) spent much of her early career in Germany and France in response to the racial and gender discrimination she experienced in the United States. In 1986 she accepted an invitation to be an artist-in-residence at Spelman College. She resided in Atlanta for the remainder of her life where her painting, sculpture, drawing, printmaking, writing, and musical explorations expanded into the dynamic oeuvre for which she is now becoming acclaimed. Mildred Thompson: The Atlanta Years, 1986 – 2003, is the artist’s first large-scale, interdisciplinary solo exhibition in the city.

Mildred Thompson: The Atlanta Years, 1986 – 2003 is an original exhibition organized by the Spelman College Museum of Fine Art and curated by Andrea Barnwell Brownlee, Ph.D., Director, Spelman College Museum of Fine Art, and Melissa Messina, Curator of the Mildred Thompson Estate.

Mildred Thompson, Magnetic Fields, 1991; oil on canvas, 70.5 x 150 inches. Courtesy the Estate of Mildred Thompson and Galerie Lelong & Co., New York