Painter and printmaker Jennie Tomao was born Gina Tomao in New York City in 1934. She attended the New York School of Music and Art in Harlem, where she received an Award of Excellence from the Pittsburgh Institute of Art.

While still a student at the School of Music and Art, she married fellow artist Charles Bragg, and in 1952 they moved to Detroit. After the birth of their two children, they relocated to Los Angeles in 1956 and set up a studio in Beverly Hills from which they worked and taught. Tomao became one of the first students at Gemini Ltd print workshop under founder Kenneth Tyler. Her early subject matter focused on children and other figurative works; her later career focused on landscapes, with particular interest in trees. She died in Los Angeles in 2011.

Tomao exhibited in Long Beach, Beverly Hills, Pacific Palisades, San Diego, San Francisco, Palm Desert and Tustin, California; Portland, Oregon; Vancouver, British Columbia; New Orleans, Louisiana and Palm Beach, Florida. She exhibited at a family show at the Riverside Museum of Arts. In 1997, she and her son, artist Charles Lynn Bragg, had a sellout show in Japan.