Artist: Tobey, Mark
Title: Folk Dance on Independence Day
Technique: Silkscreen on BFK Rives paper
size: 66 x 50,5 cm. (26 x 19,9 inch)
Framed: Not framed


More Information
Hand-Signed and numbered in pencil by the Artist.

Mark George Tobey (December 11, 1890 – April 24, 1976) was an American painter. His densely structured compositions, inspired by Asian calligraphy, resemble Abstract expressionism, although the motives for his compositions differ philosophically from most Abstract Expressionist painters. His work was widely recognized throughout the United States and Europe. Along with Guy Anderson, Kenneth Callahan, Morris Graves, and William Cumming, Tobey was a founder of the Northwest School. Senior in age and experience, he had a strong influence on the others; friend and mentor, Tobey shared their interest in philosophy and Eastern religions. Similar to others of the Northwest School, Tobey was mostly self-taught after early studies at the Art Institute of Chicago. In 1921, Tobey founded the art department at The Cornish School in Seattle, Washington.

Tobey was an incessant traveler, visiting Mexico, Europe, Palestine, Israel, Turkey, Lebanon, China and Japan. After converting to the Bahá'í Faith, it became an important part of his life. Whether Tobey's all-over paintings, marked by oriental brushwork and calligraphic strokes, were an influencer on Jackson Pollock's drip paintings has been left unanswered. Born in Centerville, Wisconsin, Tobey lived in the Seattle, Washington area for most of his life before moving to Basel, Switzerland in the early 1960s with his companion, Pehr Hallsten; Tobey died there in 1976.

About the artist

Mark Tobey (1890–1976), born in Centerville, Wisconsin, United States, was an American painter best known for his work in Abstract Expressionism and his development of "white writing," a unique form of gestural abstraction. Inspired by international travels, Eastern religion, Arabic calligraphy, and classical music, Tobey created a distinctive visual language of all-over painting that set him apart from his contemporaries.

Tobey's artistic practice centered on placing white calligraphic marks and symbols atop abstract fields composed of thousands of densely interwoven brushstrokes. His study of Chinese calligraphy with artist Teng Kuei in Seattle proved crucial to his artistic development. He introduced his "white writing" technique during a solo exhibition at the Willard Gallery in New York in 1944. Tobey sought to represent the mystical through art, drawing on his exposure to Eastern philosophy and religious traditions. He was a central figure and founder of the Northwest School, an art movement in the Pacific Northwest.

Tobey won the Grand Prize for Painting at the Venice Biennale in 1958, becoming only the second American to receive this honor after James McNeill Whistler. A major retrospective of his work was held at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris in 1961. His paintings are held in the permanent collections of the Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Museum of Modern Art, the Tate in London, and the Whitney Museum of American Art.

sku: MT1001

Good condition.