Alma Thomas (1891-1978) made a unique contribution to the evolution of American abstraction in the mid-to-late 20th century. Her vibrant, patterned paintings are especially noteworthy considering her artistic career flourished only after she retired. She developed her distinctive "Alma's Stripes" style by drawing inspiration from a diverse array of sources, including Byzantine mosaics, Georges Seurat's Pointillism, and Henri Matisse's famous 1953 collage "The Snail,". Thomas was born in Columbus, Georgia but she and her family relocated to Washington, D.C., to escape racial violence and seek better educational opportunities. After completing high school, Thomas earned a teaching degree and spent six years working at a settlement house in Wilmington, Delaware. At 32 years old, she became the first graduate of Howard University’s fine arts department, invited by the department's founding professor, James Herring. The following year, she began teaching art at Shaw Junior High School in northwest Washington, a position she held until her retirement in 1960. While teaching, Thomas furthered her education with degrees from Columbia University and New York University and studied painting at American University. As the first African American woman to have a solo exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, and with her works displayed in the White House, Thomas has become an inspiring figure for women, African Americans, and older artists. Her richly colored, gestural paintings, which suggest movement and draw from natural elements, highlight her lifelong study of color theory and her innovative brushwork.

Thomas's works are housed in the permanent collections of numerous prestigious American institutions, including the Art Institute of Chicago in Illinois, the Baltimore Museum of Art in Maryland, the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas, the Detroit Institute of Arts in Michigan, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Philadelphia Museum of Art in Pennsylvania, The Phillips Collection in Washington, DC, the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, DC, The White House Historical Association, and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. They have been displayed in the White House, and The Studio Museum in Harlem held solo exhibitions of her work in 1983 and 2016.