MARK TOBEY American 1890-1976, Before the Winds, 1957, Sumi ink on, paperboard, 24.75″ x 39.75”, 32” x 47” framed

Provenance:
Willard Gallery, New York
Acquired from the above by Emily McFadden Harrison Staempfli
Thence by descent to Randolph Harrison
Thence by descent to the Estate of Randolph Harrison
Exhibited:
The Collection of Emily McFadden Staempfli, May 24 – Sep. 2, 1968, The Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia
Authentication:
Achim Moeller, Managing Principal of the Mark Tobey Project LLC, has confirmed the authenticity. The work is registered in the Mark Tobey archive with the number MT [362-04-11-22]

Mark Tobey

(American 1890 –1976)

Mark Tobey studied at the Art Institute of Chicago from 1906 to 1908 and began working as a fashion illustrator, first in Chicago then in New York, before becoming involved in the mystic faith of Bahai in 1918. After visiting a monastery in Kyoto he studied Zen painting, haiku poetry, and calligraphy, devoting himself to an abstraction which sought to unify space rather than separate objects.

Influenced by this experience, Tobey developed his signature style of “white writing,” in where white or light-colored calligraphic symbols were overlaid on an abstract field, as seen in his hallmark work, Threading Light,1942. During the 1940s, a younger generation of artists including Jackson Pollock, began utilizing the overall painting approach pioneered by Tobey.

In 1951, Tobey had a solo exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art, the show traveled throughout the country and established Tobey as an integral figure in the art world. Today, the artist’s works are held in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Tate Gallery in London, the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C., and the Art Institute of Chicago, among many others.

Selected Exhibitions

2002

Tobey – Price – Graves, University of Oregon Museum of Art, OR, USA

Mark Tobey – Morris Graves – John Cage, Kunsthalle Bremen, Germany; Museum Tacoma, Tacoma, WA, USA

Baukunst Galerie, Cologne, Germany (solo)

BAUKUNST GALERIE, Cologne, Germany (solo)

2001–2002

Da Kandinsky a Pollock: La vertigine della non-forma, Museo Cantonale d’Arte Lugano, Switzerland

2001

Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, Germany (solo)

Galerie Carzaniga + Uecker, Basel, Switzerland (solo)

Hachmeister Galerie, Munster, Germany (solo)

Museum Villa Rot, Burgrieden-Rot, Germany (solo)

The spirituality of the void, Fundacion Bancaja, Valencia, Spain

Hue, Schmidt Bingham Galleries, New York, NY

2000

Museum Bochum, Germany

Kurt Lidtke Galleries, Seattle, WA, USA (solo)

Galerie Biedermann, Munich, Germany (solo)

Native American Influences on 1930s & 1940s Modernists, David Findlay Jr. Fine Art, NY

Cross-Currents in Modern Art, Achim Moeller Fine Art, New York, NY

Selected Exhibitions continued

1999

Linden-Museum, Stuttgart, Germany (solo)

Kurt Lidtke Galleries, Seattle, WA, USA (solo)

1998–1999

Closeness of Distance, Khmer Skulpturen und Mark Tobey Bilder, Emil Mirzakhanian, Milan, Italy and Hachmeister Galerie, Munster, Germany

Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain (solo)

Baukunst Galerie, Cologne, Germany (solo)

1992–1993

Baukunst Galerie, Cologne, Germany

1991–1992 Galerie Lea Gredt, Luxemberg

Valley Museum of Northwest Art, La Conner, WA, USA

1990 Galerie Jeanne Bucher, FIAC, Paris, France

1974 Retrospective, National Collection of Fine Arts, Smithsonian, Washington, DC, USA

1968 Retrospective, Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, Dallas, TX, USA

1967 Willard Gallery, New York, NY

1966 Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands (solo)

1962 Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY (solo)

1961 Retrospective, Musée des Arts Decoratifs, subsidiary of the Louvre, Paris, France

1952 film “Tobey Mark: Artist” debuted in the Venice Film Festival and Edinburgh Film Festival

1951 (First Retrospective), California Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco, CA, USA

Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY (group)

1945   Portland Art Museum, Portland, OR, USA (solo)