MARK TOBEY | Microcosms of Time

Willard Gallery, New York
William Koshland Collection (acquired in 1963)
The Museum of Modern Art, New York (gift from the above in 1964)

Paris, Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Rétrospective Mark Tobey, 18 October - 1 December 1961; catalogue, no. 267
London, Whitechapel Art Gallery, Mark Tobey Retrospective: Paintings and Drawings 1925-1961, 1 January - 4 March 1962

The colours are fairly accurate in the printed catalogue illustration. The paper sheet is glued to a cardboard. Pinholes are located in each of the four corners. The paper is not a perfect rectangle and the right edge is uneven. The upper left quadrant presents a tiny scratch and a tiny accretion, visible upon very close inspection only. This work is in very good condition.
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Microcosms of Timeis undeniably one of the most astonishing works that Mark Tobey made in 1961, the year when a retrospective exhibition held at the prestigious Musée des Arts Décoratifs honored the artist as the very first American to have a solo exhibition there. Microcosms of Time was one of the highlights of this great exhibition held from October 18 to December 1 at the Pavilion de Marsan of the Louvre Palace. The Parisian audience was stunned to discover the hypnotic compositions of this artist already famous on the other side of the Atlantic, since Alfred Barr had presented him at  MoMA  for the first time in 1930, and his White Writings had strongly influenced the trajectory of many of his contemporaries, Jackson Pollock included. After his success three years earlier at the 29^th Venice Biennale, where he became the second American artist to win the Grand Prize of Painting after James McNeill Whistler, Mark Tobey was at the peak of his career. Janet Flanner, reporter for the New Yorker in Paris made no mistake when naming his exhibition at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs the "one man show of the season", and the majority of critics agreed that Tobey was undoubtedly "one of the most important painters of his time."

Born in 1890 in Wisconsin, the artist was trained in the most classical techniques of western painting at the Art Institute of Chicago, and studied Chinese calligraphy with the great Yeng Kuei. Mark Tobey was not only a pioneer of action painting, having perfectly mastered the all-over technique, but also one of the most unclassifiable and ecumenical artists of his time, drawing inspiration from an incredible variety of sources: from  Zen philosophy and the Arabic and Persian alphabets to the Bahá'í Faith to which he converted in 1918. A wonderful synthesis of his many passions, Microcosms of Time is a key example of one of the most original visions of the 20^th century, a reinterpretation of an esoteric and universal millennial tradition.

Achim Moeller, Managing Principal of the Mark Tobey Project LLC, has confirmed the authenticity. The work is registered in the Mark Tobey archive with the number MT [268-5-22-19].