Mark Tobey, 1890-1976

Monday, May 10, 1976, Robert Hughes wrote an obituary in TIME of Mark Tobey Incarnations of Tobey TIME

By the ’50s, a stereotype of Tobey had emerged, and it was to affect his reputation in American art: the sage of the Pacific Northwest, perched on a misty crag, making exquisitely obscure calligraphic doodles. Tobey had worked for a year in China. At that time it was hardly possible for a painter to have done this without being regarded, in some circles, as a perambulating bodhisattva.

I am posting to pursue a thread. The relationship between calligraphy and modern art. It is there everywhere once you look. The action painters, like Franz Klein, Max Gimblett, Pollock. I will keep at it.

More here, and here is a good site: MARK TOBEY, American artist 1890-1976, Page by Arthur Lyon Dahl It has paintings as well as this photo of him:

Mark Tobey

Bridgeman Art Library – Image Search
Good sample – small images.


Art & Belief Amazon

That is one of about three Toby books I just bought online! Through Amazon but dirt cheap from secondhand shops. They will take months to get here, I may be over Toby by then, but I doubt it.

More text & images by Mark Tobey follow.

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