Northwest Modernists, Spokane and American Artists | Northwest Modernists | Mark Tobey (Northwest Art Collection: Works On Paper)

Northwest Art Collection: Works On Paper

Northwest Modernists, Spokane and American Artists : Northwest Modernists : Mark Tobey

Name: Mark Tobey

Born: 1890

Died: 1976

Nationality: American

Affiliations: WPA Artist, Northwest Artist, and Northwest School

Mark Tobey was born in Centerville, Wisconsin. In 1906 he moved to Hammond, Indiana, and studied at the Art Institute of Chicago. He spent the rest of life moving from continent to continent, making art, teaching, and exhibiting. Tobey spent considerable periods in Seattle where he taught out of his studio and influenced a generation of artists, many of whom would become well known in their own right. While living in Seattle during 1938 he worked for the Works Progress Administration for six months. Judith S. Kays establishes in her essay for the 1998 Museo Nacional Centra de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid exhibition, "Mark Tobey: A Retrospective Exhibition," that Jackson Pollock was familiar with Mark Tobey's work. This quite likely influenced Pollock who began working in the "all-over" painting style that he ultimately made famous. In Seattle, Tobey was a contemporary of Guy Anderson, Morris Graves, and Kenneth Callahan. Tobey's friends, followers, and students included Carl Morris, Helmi Juvonen, Jackson Pollock, George Tstutakawa, Paul Horiuchi, Pehr Hallsten, James Washington Jr., Wesley Wehr, and Kathleen Gemberling Adkison. The Northwest Museum of Arts & Culture owns twenty prints and one original drawing by Mark Tobey. Also in the MAC's holding are two photographic portraits of Mark Tobey by Mary Randlett and two works by Helmi Juvonen that depict Mark Tobey. Sources: Mine are the Orient: The Occident, Science, Religion, Cities, Space, and Writing, a review of the exhibit Mark Tobey: A Retrospective Exhibition, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, 11 November 1997 to 12 January 1998, Madrid [electronic document] (New York, New York: ONE COUNTRY Bahá'í International Community Online Newsletter, accessed 17 July 2006); available from http://www.onecountry.org/ oc94/ oc9416as.html; Internet.