Mark Tobey

Painter, born in Centerville, Wisconsin, USA. A self-taught artist, he moved to New York (1911) and became a commercial artist and portraitist. He converted to Baha'i (1918), a Near Eastern-based religion, which influenced his ‘white writing’ - a calligraphic technique used in his abstract tempera and gouache paintings, such as ‘Broadway’ (1936). He travelled widely and lived in Seattle, Washington, and Switzerland.

Mark Tobey (December 11, 1890 – April 24, 1976) was an American abstract painter. He studied art at the Art Institute of Chicago before moving to New York in 1911. In 1922 Tobey moved to Seattle to teach at the Cornish College of Allied Arts. Tobey held his first solo exhibition at the Seattle Art Museum in 1935.

Mark Tobey's work can be found in most major museums in the U.S. and internationally, including the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Tate Gallery in London, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Whitney Museum of American Art.