Alma W. Thomas

Alma Thomas was born in Columbus and her family moved to Washington, D.C., where she was the first graduate of the Howard University Art department in 1924. She earned her MA in Education from Columbia University in 1934. Thomas spent much of her life in D.C., and relatively late in her career moved from representational to abstract painting, becoming an important participant in the Washington Color School, a group of painters exploring color and form. Thomas was particularly interested in geometry and pattern, which she combined with an intimate knowledge of color theory, to capture the feel of natural landscapes, along with powerful natural forces such as wind and light. In 1972, Thomas had solo exhibitions at the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Corcoran Gallery of Art; a 2016 retrospective took place at the Tang Teaching Museum at Skidmore College and the Studio Museum in Harlem.