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Alma W. Thomas, born in Columbus, Ga. some 70 years ago, moved to Washington in 1908. In 1924 she was the first and only graduate of the Howard University Art Department. During her 36 years of teaching art  in Shaw Junior Highschool, she continued her studies. In 1933 she received an M.A. in Art Education from Columbia University, New York City and thereafter attended Creative Art classes in American University, Washington,D.C. Under the auspices of Temple University she toured the art centers of Western Europe.

In 1960 she retired from teaching and devoted her entire time to serious painting. Her retirement was not FROM but INTO art. Beginning as an academic painter she passed through an expressionist stage, and emerged as one of the most vigorous abstract painters on the Washington scene.  James Harithas states that she has not only accepted the basic principles of modern abstract painting but she has found in them a source of expression for her delight in nature. She is individual in her work which reflects freshness of vision and real insight into the world around her.

Miss Thomas is presenting 5 slides which represent her latest style of painting, inspired by the forms and color patterns seen from airplanes speeding through space. She works within pure color, parallel stripe format pioneered by the Washington Color Painters. She uses free, irregular strokes of paint, some close together, others far apart, thus creating interesting patterns of canvass peeping around the strokes.

Slide #1 - Miss Thomas working in her studio on one of her paintings
"[[ditto for Slide]] #2 - Title: Wind, Sunshine and Flowers
"[[ditto for Slide]] #3 - Title: Ladybird's Beautification Around the Potomac #1
"[[ditto for Slide]] #4 - Title: Ladybird's Beautification Around the Potomac #2
"[[ditto for Slide]] #5 - Title: Early Spring in Washington

To: Carnegie Institute
Division of Education
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15219