Alma Woodsey Thomas (1891 - 1978)

Alma Woodsey Thomas

Alma Woodsey Thomas was a twentieth-century American artist. She is known as a painter and educator, a member of the Harlem Renaissance African American cultural movement.

Alma Thomas rose to fame as an artist after her retirement after a 35-year career teaching high school art in Washington, DC. She created colorful abstract paintings. The artist's technique was to draw thin pencil lines on canvas to create shapes and patterns and then fill the canvas with paint. Thomas' later work has been compared by critics to West African paintings and Byzantine mosaics.