Today, we’re looking at the joyous art by painter Alma Thomas. The first graduate of Howard University’s art department, the artist spent most of her working life as a teacher at Shaw Junior High in Washington D.C. She taught art there in the same classroom for 35 years. Like most of the best art teachers, when she wasn’t teaching art, she was making it. Her abstract, colorful paintings were filled with vibrant dabs of color, and they began getting attention. Thomas was very involved in the U.S. black arts scene starting in the 1920s, and by the early 1950s, her fellow artists inspired her to return to her studies, which she pursued nights and weekends while working full time as a teacher. In 1960, Thomas retired from teaching and became a full-time artist at the age of 69.

In 1972, Alma Thomas became the first Black woman to have a solo exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art. Thomas died in 1978, but her legacy has continued. In fact, in 2014, she became the first African-American woman whose work was included in the White House’s permanent art collection.

“One of the things we couldn’t do was go into museums, let alone think of hanging our pictures there. My, times have changed. Just look at me now.”

You can see many of Alma Thomas’s wonderful works on the website for The National Gallery of Art and on the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s Alma Thomas page.