Mark Tobey Artwork valuations, appraisals and auction estimates

Tobey Mark (Centerville, 1890 - Basel, 1976) Mark Tobey was an American abstract expressionist painter. He attended the Art Institute of Chicago from 1906 to 1908 and in 1911 he moved to Greenwich Village in New York, where he worked for a fashion magazine "McCall" as an illustrator and in the same period began producing portraits. Read the full biography

Tobey Mark (Centerville, 1890 - Basel, 1976) Mark Tobey was an American abstract expressionist painter. He attended the Art Institute of Chicago from 1906 to 1908 and in 1911 he moved to Greenwich Village in New York, where he worked for a fashion magazine "McCall" as an illustrator and in the same period began producing portraits. In 1917 he had his first solo show at M. Knoedler & Co. in New York. In 1918 he converted to the World Bahá'í Faith, so much so that oriental traditions began to decisively influence his painting. The artist became interested in European Cubism, collecting Indian fabrics and wood sculptures and approached Chinese painting. In 1925 he undertook a journey that would last 5 years, in which he became interested in Arabic and Persian writing. This trip had a strong influence on the creation of his paintings, in which he experimented with a new technique characterized by an intertwining of white lines, called "white writing", a style that involved covering the painting with layers of white, similar to Pollock's technique . In 1940 and 1946 he held two solo exhibitions at the Club of Chicago and in 1944 he exhibited the “White Writing” paintings at the Willard Gallery in New York. Tobey presented a solo exhibition at the Galerie Jeanne in Paris and American critics soon recognized him as one of the precursors of American Abstract Expressionism. In 1956 he won the International Guggenheim Prize. In the 1960s Tobey obtained the City of Venice Painting Award at the Venice Biennale and subsequently held a solo exhibition at the Museè des Arts Dècoratifs.