TOBEY, MARK

born Dec. 11, 1890, Centerville, Wis., U.S. died April 24, 1976, Basel, Switz. American painter whose work is characterized by a rhythmical, abstract calligraphy, usually white on a dark ground. Tobey studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and worked for a time as a fashion illustrator and portraitist in New York City. His conversion to the Baha'i faith in 1918 marked the beginning of a lifelong interest in non-Western spirituality. Tobey's mature painting style evolved after a visit to East Asia in 1934, during which time he spent one month in a Zen monastery in Kyoto and studied Chinese calligraphy in Shanghai. The calligraphic influence first manifested itself in the tangled brushwork of his cityscapes of the 1930s (e.g., Broadway, 1936), and Tobey went on to develop a unique style consisting of a web or network of calligraphic marks painted in white against a gray or coloured ground. This white writing soon displaced all realistic representation in his work. Tobey's works are small in size by modern American standards, and the cool refinement of their primarily watercolour, tempera, or pastel surfaces further distinguishes them from those of his contemporaries. His use of an all-over, abstract linear network in his paintings anticipated the works of Jackson Pollock.