American Monotypes from the Baker/Pisano Collection | Page 66

Mark Tobey (American, 1890–1976)
Untitled (Composition in Red), 1967

Watercolor counterproof, 5 9/16 x 8 7/16 in.
Chazen Museum of Art, gift of D. Frederick Baker from the
Baker/Pisano Collection, 2014.6.14

Mark Tobey was born in Centerville, Wisconsin. He attended
the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (1906–1907), which
was the beginning and the end of his formal study of art. He
moved to Seattle, Washington, in 1922, and though he traveled
throughout the world, Seattle remained home base for the rest
of his life. His work was included in the now famous 1930
exhibition Painting and Sculpture by Living Americans at New
York’s Museum of Modern Art. The exhibition propelled Tobey
into the international art scene, and in 1958 was only the
second American artist (after James McNeill Whistler) to win
the Grand International Painting Prize at the Venice Biennale.
He is generally acknowledged to be a mystical artist—a
somewhat vague term used to describe his paintings and
monotypes, the watercolor counterproof being a variant of
the monotype.
NOTES:
Cooper, “Tobey, Mark,” Grove Art Online.
For a recent exhibition catalogue, see Wilkin, Mark Tobey.

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