Working Artist for over 35 Years in Dallas, Texas (click on any image to enlarge it; press your back button to return to this page)
Beautiful tribute on The Artist Lives website!
Throughout her career, Rose Marcus Tobey worked in diverse media exploring the possibilities with her paintings and sculpture.
In every medium, she brought together unrelated bits and assembled them into memorable works of art. She explained, “Memories and personal experiences adds a creative dimension to my work, using at times found objects or text and shapes which often depart from realism. That is the magic in art.”
Never one to cut off her ear for her art, Rose’s work reflected her own joie de vivre. Her pieces were notable for color, whimsy, and a light touch and often demonstrated a reverence for her family.
Artist Statement
The visual artist uses the tools of his trade such as color, texture, and movement to reveal his hopes and concerns for the environment as it influences the human condition. We look about our world as we remember the history of a people and its impact on the present and maybe, even the future. Using memories and personal experiences adds a creative dimension to one’s work.
Artists don’t work in a vacuum, but act as a mirror and with their own special voices, they tell what they see. As in dreams, the artist speaks in symbolism. We, as viewers, must interpret what we see. The artist’s materials need not be orthodox, his shapes may depart from realism.
An artist creates his own vision, makes his own rules, and presents personal feelings. Many use a pictorial form to communicate with the viewer, others may use three dimensional forms, found objects, and even text. The artist may even manipulate the time warp so that the past could become the future. That is the magic of art, and if we as artists become very good, we may help you, the viewer, join in the enchantment.
Rose Marcus Tobey
Tobey was a Signature Member of the Texas Visual Arts Association and served on its board of directors. Her art is held by major corporate, private, and museum collections in Dallas and across the country.
Texas Visual Arts Association (TVAA) Brushtrokes article on Tobey
Early Career
Beginning in the early 1970s, Tobey’s early career centered on oil painting, encouraged through instruction. She began to have exhibitions of her work fairly soon after, attributing her color sense and natural compositional strength to growing up with creative parents. Even in her early paintings, she mixed in materials like netting to amplify the texture of her already thick impasto style, previewing the three-dimensional work that would characterize her late career.
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Tobey moved from the slower-drying oil to quick acrylic paint. In the 1980s, her works became more abstracted, even when she included a figure. She regularly exhibited and received press coverage and accolades, developing a strong sense of herself as a professional artist. To view a catalogue of works from Tobey’s mid career, visit this page.
Highlights include:
During the 1990s, Tobey increasingly followed her instincts to experiment, push boundaries, and open up her pieces beyond the wall. She worked in various media and mixed found objects with paint, handmade paper, photography, and oil pastels. She played with optics, collaging and montaging photographs, as well as molding paper into sculptural forms. The work grew very large, both as paintings and sculpture, before reducing down to small pieces, in the form of prints and paintings, at the end of her career. To view the catalogue of Tobey’s later career works by medium and approach, visit this page.
Highlights include:
A Leader in the Field
Rose Marcus Tobey was a remarkable leader in the regional arts scene. In addition to growing as an artist, Tobey actively championed women in visual arts, generously mentored young and emerging artists, and served as President of the Texas Visual Arts Association (TVAA).
She prided herself on the growth of the visual arts community in Dallas. In 2005, an outpouring of returned love to her family included a month-long gallery retrospective of Tobey’s career, benefit auctions of her work with TVAA and the Texas Sculpture Association, and an honorary media and public awareness event presented by the Dallas Alzheimer’s Association, demonstrating how the disease doesn’t have to cripple creativity.
Tobey’s dedication to art students of all ages inspired the Rose Marcus Tobey Memorial Award through TVAA for high school artists. She would be proud to participate in furthering these new careers, and her family wishes you all the best as you move forward and create.
Rose Marcus Tobey Memorial Exhibition, The Magic in Art April 2005, Thompson Fine Arts, Inc.
Well-done! I’m so happy to see Rose’s life and art honored as it should be.
An additional comment:
Rose would be so pleased to have her work and her efforts honored in this way. She was such a creative person, and came from a place, at a time, when it was very difficult for a woman to pursue such a passion. But she took herself seriously, and she did it despite the roadblocks.
Love it!
This is so nice, I’ve really enjoyed reading everything. Excellent tribute.
What a beautiful homage to Rose and legacy for us all. Thank you.
What a wonderful tribute to Mom. This really shows the breadth and depth of the output from an amazingly creative mind. Thank you for doing this.
What a loving tribute to a beautiful & creative woman. Well done, Rena!
I love it! Thank you so much for showcasing the work of a talented artist and beautiful person.
A beautiful tribute. Her work demands my attention. And the result is that I find myself smiling. ‘Dancing Dresses’ is a classic example!
Thanks for putting this together and giving us this chance to see more, more, more!
Thanks, Ben, and to everyone who has taken the time to enjoy Rose’s work!
Dear Rose was a gift to us all, beautiful inside and out.
Thank you, Julianne!