Alma Thomas

Alma Woodsey Thomas was born in 1891 in Columbus, Georgia, and moved with her family to Washington, D.C. in 1907 to escape racial violence. Though she dreamed of being an architect, she became the first fine arts graduate of Howard University in 1924 and spent 35 years teaching art to Black students in segregated schools before fully devoting herself to painting.

After retiring at age 69, Thomas embraced abstraction, developing a style of radiant dabs and stripes of color inspired by nature, music, and outer space. She called on influences from Byzantine mosaics, color theory, and the Washington Color School — but always made the form her own.

Her Earth and Space series are full of poetic light: fields of concentric circles, vibrant brushstrokes, and compositions that dance with joy. While many artists tackled the turmoil of the 1960s directly, Thomas believed in beauty’s quiet power: 'I’ve never bothered painting the ugly things in life… I wanted something beautiful that you could sit down and look at. And then, the paintings change you.'

In 1972, Thomas became the first Black woman to have a solo exhibition at the Whitney Museum. She was over 80 years old. Her paintings have since hung in the White House and the Met, a triumph unimaginable during her youth, when Black Americans couldn’t even enter most museums. She didn’t just paint beauty—she became part of its history.