Alma Orlić was born in Zagreb in 1937. After high school, she took a BFA in painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb, class of Marin Tartaglia. She was then a volunteer for three years in the Yugoslav Academy Restoration Institute, and learned the art of restoration. She continued working in this establishment for the next 15 years, and then moved to the Museum of Arts and Crafts restoration workshop.
In 1968 she passed the national conservation exam, and in 1971 had sabbatical at the Institut Royal du Patrimoine Artistique, Brussels, gaining new knowledge and experience.
In combination with a career in painting, from 1961 she worked as restorer of top works of the Croatian heritage. She was head of the restoration workshop in the Museum of Arts and Crafts. She introduced a system of proper restoration and conservation documentation and photo documentation into the museum and improved the practice of primary conservation. She took an active part in educational activity, holding lectures and working with consultants. Her restoration oeuvre is outstanding in terms of both quality and scope, with 134 treatments in paintings of various techniques and dimensions, 73 treatments to sculptures (wood, polychrome, gilding, terracotta).
Her large painting oeuvre is thematically connected with this part of her practice. She has shown her work at 50 or so individual and about 150 collective exhibitions, as well as appeared at 20 art colonies. In 1969 she won the Silver Prize of the City of Paris at the Bouquet of Flowers exhibition; the Lotršćak Prize in 1970; the Krynice Art Colony Prize (Poland); the Primošten Art Colony Prize in 1991, and other prizes. She has been a member of the Croatian Fine Artists Association since 1961.
In 2010. was awarded by Croatian Museum Association with „Pavao Ritter Vitezović“ award for a lifetime achievement.

NB. Data taken from the questionnaire, material taken from the Personnel Archives of the MDC, and from an interview recorded on March 13, 2002.; information about the lifetime achievement award was taken from the Croatian Museum Association web page (http://www.hrmud.hr/clanak/Nagrada_za_zivotno-djelo-Pavao-Ritter-Vitezovic/20, access 05.04.2012.)