Thomas, Alma Woodsey, 1891-1978

Alma Woodsey Thomas, painter and teacher, was born in Columbus, Georgia on September 22, 1894, the eldest of the four daughters of John Harris Thomas and Amelia Cantey Thomas. The family moved to Washington, D.C. in 1906. Alma Thomas graduated in 1911 from Armstrong Technical High School where she was first introduced to art classes. From 1911 to 1913, she took a course in kindergarten teaching at the Miner Normal School, Washington, D.C. Because of the lack of permanent positions in the D.C. public school system, she accepted substitute work until early 1914 when she received a teaching position on the Eastern shore of Maryland. Then, from 1916 to 1923, she taught kindergarten at Thomas Garrett Settlement House in Wilmington, Delaware.

Thomas originally enrolled at Howard University in Washington, D.C. as a home economics major in 1921, but after studying under Prof. James V. Herring in his newly established art department, she earned a B. S. degree in Fine Arts in 1924. She then began her teaching career at Shaw Junior High School in Washington, D.C. that lasted from 1924 until her retirement in 1960. During this time she established community arts programs that would encourage her students to develop an appreciation of fine arts. Activities included marionette programs and distribution of student-designed holiday menu cards for dinners given for soldiers at the Tuskegee Veterans' Hospital sponsored by the Red Cross Society.

In 1934, Thomas earned an M.A. degree in Art Education from Columbia University in New York. At American University in Washington, D.C., she studied Creative Painting under Joe Summerford, Robert Gates, and Jacob Kainen from 1950 to 1960. In 1958, she toured of the art centers of Western Europe under the auspices of the Tyler School of Fine Arts at Temple University in Philadelphia.

Following her retirement from teaching in 1960, Thomas devoted all her time to painting. Her work was exhibited at the Dupont Theatre Art Gallery, at Howard University, and at the Franz Bader Gallery before she was honored in 1972 with solo exhibitions at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, and at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. She died on February 24, 1978 in Washington, D.C.