Thelma Johnson Streat

born Yakima, Washington, 1911; died Los Angeles, California, 1959

BiographyThelma Johnson Streat was a painter, dancer, illustrator, and educator with an abiding fascination for the artistic traditions of indigenous cultures and belief in their power to teach tolerance. Trained at the Portland Art Museum School she began exhibiting her work locally at the Oregon Federation of Colored Women then went on to such prestigious venues as the San Francisco Museum of Art and the Art Institute of Chicago. From 1939-1940 she assisted Diego Rivera in the creation of a mural for the Golden Gate International Exposition and in 1942, she became the first African-American woman to have a work collected by the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Streat also had a highly successful dance career performing all over the world including command performances for Queen Elizabeth and Eleanor Roosevelt. During the late 1940s and early 1950s, Streat traveled extensively studying indigenous cultures. She incorporated motifs from these cultures into her artworks.

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