Alma Thomas
1891-1978

Alma Woodsey Thomas, an African American woman, was born in Columbus, Georgia in 1891.
She was an art educator for over thirty-five years, beginning her own artistic career only later in life. During her lifetime she saw two World Wars, the Great Depression, the flowering of the Harlem Renaissance, the civil rights movement, the struggles for a black identity and the women's movement.

The first graduate of Howard University's new art department in 1929, Thomas became a high school teacher. She also worked in several Washington neighborhoods with young people to help them appreciate and understand art.

In 1950, when she was in her 60s, she decided to go back to school and attended the American University. It was at this time that she began developing her distinctive abstract works, characterized by their brilliant colors and mosaic-like brushstrokes. She began using acrylic paints and large canvases. Although not a member of the Washington School, her work had a strong affinity with this group. Greatly influenced by nature, she began producing canvases covered in abstract patterns inspired by the patterns of light shining through foliage and flowers.
Entranced with the space exploration program, she also produced a series of works based on space, with titles like Blast Off, Launch Pad and the Eclipse.

In 1972, she became the first African American woman to be granted a solo exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art. At this time, she began reducing her colors and experimenting more with optical effects. Many works from this time, though still inspired by nature, had musical allusions in the titles. Scarlet Sage Dancing a Whirling Dervish, from 1976, demonstrated rhythmic all-over patterns and a mosaic-like quality, using a very limited palette.

" I would wade in the brook and when it rained you could hear music," she said of Babbling Brook and Whistling Poplar Trees Symphony, 1976. " I would fall on the grass and look at the poplar trees and the lovely yellow leaves would whistle."