Steffen Thomas
His most notable pieces are public monuments; however, he also worked in other media (including, but not limited to painting, sculpture, mosaic, printmaking, encaustic, and watercolor).
[2] In 1931 Thomas created a bust of journalist Henry W. Grady which became the central display of the Georgia Newspaper Hall of Fame.
Thomas was introduced to Douglass through her mother over a conversation about gardening, and after a two-month courtship they were married (1933) at Fulton County Courthouse.
While his family remained in Germany, Thomas found his artistic life belonged in his adoptive country and he became an American citizen in 1935.
[4] In 1941, Sara and Steffen purchased fifty acres near Stone Mountain, Georgia, and subsequently built a home and artist studio.
Among the most notable monuments are the Alabama Memorial (1951) installed at the Vicksburg National Military Park, the statue of Eugene Talmadge, Georgia State Capitol Collection, and the Trilon (c.1950) located on the corner of Peachtree and 15th Street in Atlanta.
Thomas also created numerous busts commemorating prominent Georgians: Chief Justice Richard Russell Jr., Georgia State College for Women (currently Georgia College and State University), Milledgeville, GA; Martha Berry, Berry Schools (currently Berry College), Berry, GA; Joel Chandler Harris, Atlanta Public Schools; Moina Michael, “The Poppy Lady”, Georgia State Capitol, Atlanta, GA; portrait head of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Little White House, Warm Springs, GA; and George Washington Carver, Tuskegee Institute (currently Tuskegee University), Tuskegee, AL. Thomas found acclaimed success with public works; however, with the refusal of his proposal for the Stone Mountain Civil War Memorial (a twenty-year plan in the making), he became disenchanted with seeking public commissions, and naturally turned his focus toward creating works to express his personal artistic ideals.
[6] Art Historian Anthony Janson comments on Thomas's attitude toward his art, “What better way to shield one’s work (and oneself) from criticism that to avoid the confrontation altogether by keeping all but true believers from seeing it?”[7] In 1970, Thomas returned to a midtown Atlanta studio, selling his Stone Mountain estate.
While in Germany, his art wholly reflected the classical tradition; however, by the time he settled in Atlanta, his aesthetic made a change toward the abstract.
[8]Thomas admitted that as a young man he did not understand the importance of the Expressionists’ vision, but later in life he fully recognized the influence of the movement on his own work.
[11] Due to Thomas's use of symbol and abstraction, Alan Aiches places him stylistically and philosophically between the movements of Die Brücke and Der Blaue Reiter, two generations of German art.
[12] Aiches writes the following: “When viewing and contemplating the works of the early twentieth century German Expressionists, I feel the same intense and simultaneous infusion of philosophy and craft that is so apparent in Thomas’ sculpture and painting.” [13] Thomas worked in various media: watercolor, sculpture, encaustic, welded copper, mosaic, and drawing to name a few, but he also repeatedly created frames for his pieces.
More generally, it was tied to the unfolding of his imagination, which took place in the peace of self-imposed isolation.”[12] Thomas continued to create art well into the last years of his life, although, his sight and health were failing.
However, in his final years, Thomas returned to central themes found throughout his oeuvre indicating his lifelong fervor for the creative.
[9] Thomas’s wife and lifelong muse, Sara, conceived the idea to create a museum dedicated to the memory of her husband and his art.
His mosaics and watercolors convey his passion for light and color, and his sculptures provide excellent examples of captured and arrested motion…His interest in politics, philosophy, and religion are evidenced by themes and motifs that are represented and repeated in a multiplicity of genres and mediums.”[9] Aiches, Alan Z., and Anthony F. Janson (1997).
