Throughout a career lasting over fifty years, Yvonne Thomas blended the intuitive freedom of Abstract Expressionism with the symbolic language of form and color. As she stated: “Variations on these two movements have continued and merged into a sense of adventure and invention.”For Thomas color was the “strongest joy and enigma,” and she used an expressive range of pigments in works that progressed logically in series, often conveying her emotional responses to the spirit of nature. Dedicated with serious focus to art from the late 1930s until her death at age 95, Thomas was one of few women to be part of the first-generation of Abstract Expressionists.

A member of the intimate inner circle of artists who were at the heart of the movement, she attended the historic Subjects of the Artist School (1948–49) and was invited to join the exclusive Artist’s Club (known as “The Club”). She exhibited in prominent galleries of the day—including Stable, Tanager, and Betty Parsons—and was represented in all five of the New York Paintings and Sculpture Annuals (held in a temporary gallery on New York’s 9th Street) as well as the seminal 9th Street Show of 1951.

A distinctive aspect of Thomas’s identity is that she spent her first twelve years in her native France and always felt a connection with the art and culture of Europe. This background gave her a special closeness with the other émigré artists of the time—Willem de Kooning and Marcel Duchamp were among her close friends—but she always considered herself American and saw her work as a manifestation of the place where she lived and worked.