Alton Tobey

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An example of Alton S. Tobey's semi-abstract "curvilinear" style: "Sailboats" (title on verso), acrylic on canvas, 24"x20", date unknown (probably 1960's). Alton Tobey evidently liked this composition very much, judging from the fact that he painted at least three very similar versions of it. A black and white version, probably earlier than this, is called simply "Sails". In another version, entitled "Arab Dancers", the figures are red against a black background. These latter two versions can be seen at the Alton Tobey website (See "External links"). Photo is no rights reserved.

Alton S. Tobey (5 November 1914 - 4 January 2005), the American artist, was a painter, historical artist, muralist, portraitist, illustrator, and teacher of art.

He was born in Middletown, Connecticut, and in 1934 won a scholarship to the Yale University School of Fine Arts. After his military service, he completed his masters degree at Yale and taught there for a period.

Tobey's murals (first painted in the 1930s, when he worked for the WPA Federal Art Project) and illustrations show him working in the realistic style for which he is best known. Indeed, the Larchmont Gazette obituary (see 'External links' below) states, "Alton Tobey was best known for the murals, which he called 'symphonies of painting'." As a realist painter and illustrator, he is also famously the creator of the hundreds of paintings which illustrate the twelve volumes of "The Golden Book History of the United States. Additionally, he did many illustrations for Life Magazine and Time-Life books. Millions of children, whether they knew it or not, grew up gazing at Alton Tobey's vivid imaginings of historical events (such as this one depicting a scene from the Russian revolution). Michael Bierut, writing in Design Observer magazine, wrote a very touching tribute to Alton Tobey that begins: "Alton Tobey died the week before last. Chances are you've never heard of him, but when I was eight years old, I had no doubt about one thing: Alton Tobey was the best artist in the world."

Tobey also created other, less well known paintings in an abstract (or semi-abstract) idiom, using a curious "visual alphabet" of his own invention. These he called his "curvilinears" (at right is an example). He created some sculptures in this idiom as well. These abstract works, as well as those in his realistic vein, display a distinctive and exacting draftmanship.

Also in a modern (or even postmodern) vein are his series of "fragments": bizarre portraits, mostly of famous people, consisting of extreme closeups of only parts of (usually) the head or face, often far off-center. A particularly amusing example is "Thatcher's Thatch", consisting only of the British Prime Minister's famous hairdo jutting up from the bottom of the canvas. There are also grotesque and piercingly angry paintings of social commentary, such as "Our Hero", an over-muscled monster with a tiny infant's head, embodying belligerent and stupid militarism. A portrait of Ronald Reagan called "The Making of a President" shows the President's head bizarrely stretched and multiplied across the canvas into a menacing, many-eyed creature, culminating on the far right with a disembodied Reagan smile hovering mid-air, bounded by sphincterish wrinkles which extend creepily into the smoky brown background. It would not appear to express reverence or affection for the Gipper — yet it was painted by the same man who painted this.

Referring to the dichotomy between his realist works and his curvilinears and other modernist works, Alton Tobey once said, "I live an artistic double life: one of classical realism and the other of aesthetic exploration." [quotation from the Alton Tobey website — see 'External links' below]

Alton Tobey resided for the latter part of his life in the village of Larchmont, part of the town of Mamaroneck in Westchester County, New York. He was married to Roslyn Tobey, an esteemed piano teacher and musician.

The New York Times obituary, by Wolfgang Saxon, described Alton Tobey as "a muralist, portraitist, and illustrator whose renderings of famous events and faces hang in museums, libraries, public buildings, corporate offices, and private collections."

Please see the external links below for more information.

[edit] External links

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Alton Tobey

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