Born in Centerville, Wisconsin, USA on December 11th
1906
His family moves to Hammond near Chicago; visits courses at the Art Institute, Chicago
1906 - 1908
Studied under Frank Zimmerman and Professor Reynolds at the Art Institute of Chicago
1909
Works as fashion-designer in Chicago
1911
Moves to New York, still working as fashion-designer;
1913 - 1917
Lives alternately in New York and in Chicago; autodidactic artistic studies; has success as a portraitist
1918
Converts to the 'Bahá’i-World-Faith'; meets Marcel Duchamp
1922 - 1925
Studied calligraphy and composition under Teng Kwei, University of Washington, Seattle
1925
Travels to Europe
1926
Travels to Akka and Haifa; studies Persian and Arabian literature
1927
Lives alternately in Seattle, Chicago and New York
1931
Visited Mexico
1934
Travels to China and Japan; spends a time in a cloister of the Zen-Buddhism and studies Zen-painting and calligraphy
1935
Trips to Seattle and New York; back in South-England he creates the first 'white writing'
1931 - 1938
Lives in England
1940
Studies music (flute, piano, composition); friendship with Lyonel Feininger
1942
His painting 'Broadway' is honoured and purchased by the Metropolitan Museum, New York
1954
Travels to Sweden and New York
1954 - 1955
Travels to Paris, England, Basel, Bern
1958
Travels to England, Italy and Switzerland
1960
Moves to Basel
1966
Travels to Haifa and Madrid
1970 - 1976
Lived and worked in Basel, Switzerland
1976
Died in Basel, Switzerland on April, 24th
Honors & Awards
Katherine Baker Memorial Award, Seattle Art Museum, 1940
Artists for Victory Prize, 1942
Guggenheim International Award, 1956
Honorary Member, National Institute of Arts and Letters, 1956
Fine Arts Medal, American Institute of Architects, 1957
First Prize for Painting, Biennale, Venice, 1958
First Prize for Painting, Carnegie International, Pittsburgh, 1961
Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, Paris, 1968
Exhibitions
2009
Synchronies: Undercurrrents in Postwar European and American Abstraction, Hackett Freedman Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2008
Auktion 27, Lehr, Auktionshaus und Galerie, Berlin
2007
Contemporary, Cool and Collected, Mint Museum of Art, Charlotte, NC Le Corps et son double, Galerie Jeanne Bucher, Paris, France The Passionate Gesture, Hackett Freedman Gallery, San Francisco, CA Jan Bouman Collection, Groninger Museum, Groningen Shining Spirit: Westheimer Family Collection, Oklahoma City Museum of Art, Oklahoma City, OK Pathways and Parallels:Roads to Abstract Expressionism, Hollis Taggart Galeries, New York, NY American Modernists, University of Wyoming Art Museum, Laramie, WY
2006
La Tentation de l'Orient, Galerie Jeanne Bucher, Paris Kunstler der Galerie, Galerie Biedermann, Munich Wilfrid Moser/Mark Tobey, Galerie Carzaniga GmbH, Basel Night Sounds: Nocturnal Visions of Mark Tobey and Morris Graves, Seattle Asian Art Museum, Seattle, WA Inner Worlds Outside, Whitechapel Art Gallery, London Collection 1, NMAO National Museum of Art Osaka, Osaka, Japan
2005
Light Space, Hachmeister Galerie, Munster, Germany Peintures et Sculptures, Galerie Alice Pauli, Lausanne Little Treasures from the Permanent Collection, Polk Museum of Art, Lakeland, FL
2004
Galerie Pudelko, Bonn, Germany -solo An American Odyssey, 1950-1980 - Debating Modernism, Circulo de Bellas Artes, Madrid; Centro de Arte de Salamanca; Kiosco Alfonso, La Coruna, Spain Onbegrensd – Unbegrenzt - Roger Raveelmuseum, Machelen, Belgium Chine - Occident ou l'aventure du signe. Michaux, Tobey, Degottex, Zao Wou-Ki, Shan Sa - Galerie Berthet-Aittouarès, Paris, France Künstler der Galerie, Galerie Biedermann, Munich, Germany El Expresionismo Abstracto Americano en las Colecciones Españolas, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Esteban Vicente, Segovia, Spain The Edge of Tomorrow - Tobey, Price and Graves from the 1940’s, Museum of Art, University of Oregon; San José Museum of Art
2003
Unaussprechlich schön - Das mystische Paradies in der Kunst des 20. Jahrhunderts - Kunsthalle Erfurt, Germany Two Friends - Lyonel Feininger, Mark Tobey, Achim Moeller Fine Art, New York Northwest Mythologies - The Interactions of Mark Tobey, Morris Graves, Kenneth Callahan and Guy Anderson, Tacoma Art Museum La collection Jean Planque, Salle St. Jean, Hotel de Ville, Paris, France Separated Colours of Hachmeister, Hachmeister Galerie, Munster, Germany Acquisitions Nouvelles, Galerie Alice Pauli, Lausanne, Switzerland Abstract works on paper, autour de Mark Tobey, Galerie Darthea Speyer, Paris, France
2002 - 2003
Mark Tobey - Smashing Forms and Mark Tobey and Friends, Seattle Art
2002
Tobey – Price – Graves, University of Oregon Museum of Art, Oregon, USA Klänge des Inneren Auges. Mark Tobey – Morris Graves – John Cage, Kunsthalle Bremen, Bremen, Germany; Museum Tacoma, Tacoma/Washington Baukunst Galerie, Cologne, Germany (solo) Mark Tobey - Bilder von 1940 bis 1975, BAUKUNST GALERIE, Cologne, Germany -solo
2001 - 2002
Da Kandinsky a Pollock: La vertigine della non-forma, Museo Cantonale d'Arte Lugano, Switzerland
2001
Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, Germany (solo) Galerie Carzaniga + Uecker, Basel, Switzerland (solo) Hachmeister Galerie, Münster, Germany (solo) Museum Villa Rot, Burgrieden-Rot, Germany (solo) The spirituality of the void, Fundacion Bancaja, Valencia, Spain Asian Influences I, Kurt Lidtke Galleries, Seattle, Washington Hue, Schmidt Bingham Galleries, NY
2000
Zen und die westliche Kunst, Museum Bochum, Germany Kurt Lidtke Galleries, Seattle, USA (solo) Galerie Biedermann, Munich, Germany (solo) Native American INfluences on 1930s & 1940s Modernists, David FIndlay Jr. FIne Art, New York, NY Cross-Currents in Modern Art, Achim Moeller Fine Art, NY
1999
Galerie Carzaniga + Uecker, Basel, Switzerland (solo) Linden-Museum, Stuttgart (solo) Kurt Lidtke Galleries, Seattle, USA (solo)
1998 - 1999
Closeness of Distance, Khmer Skulpturen und Mark Tobey Bilder, Emil Mirzakhanian, Milan, Italy and Hachmeister Galerie, Münster, Germany
1998
Kurt Lidtke Galleries, Seattle, USA (solo) Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain (solo) Baukunst Galerie, Cologne, Germany (solo)
1996
Luhring Augustine, New York, NY
1992 - 1993
Baukunst Galerie, Cologne, Germany
1991 - 1992
Galerie Lea Gredt, Luxemberg
1991
Valley Museum of NOrthwest Art, La Conner, Washington
1990
Galerie Jeanne Bucher, FIAC, Paris, France
1977
"Mark Tobey Retrospective", Ruth S. Shaffner Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
1974
Retrospective, National Collection of Fine Arts, Smithsonian, Washington, DC
1968
Retrospective, Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, Dallas, TX
1967
Willard Gallery, New York, NY
1966
Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (solo)
1962
Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY (solo)
1961
Retrospective, Musée des Arts Decoratifs, subsidiary of the Louvre, Paris, France
1952
film “Tobey Mark: Artist” debuted in the Venice Film Festival and Edinburgh Film Festival
1951
(first retrospective), California Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco, CA Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY (group)
1945
Portland Art Museum, Portland, Oregon (solo)
Literature
2004
Heiner Hachmeister (ed.), Mark Tobey Light Space, Muenster 2004
1991
Heiner Hachmeister (ed.), Mark Tobey Werke / Oeuvres 1945-1975, Muenster 1991
