Agate World

1945

born Centerville, Wisconsin, 1890; died Basel, Switzerland, 1976

When Tobey sent this painting to his New York dealer, Marian Willard, in 1945, she recorded its title as London, 1944, which may have been Tobey’s original choice for the painting, the map-like grid of coursing white lines recalling, perhaps, the kinds of blackout photographs he had seen in LIFE Magazine.

Opaque watercolor on composite board

14 7/8 x 11 in. (37.8 x 27.9 cm)

Overall h.: 21 1/2 in.

Overall w.: 18 7/8 in.

Eunice P. Clise Fund, Seattle Foundation

50.110

Photo: Paul Macapia

Not currently on view

Resources

Exhibition HistorySan Francisco, California, California Palace of the Legion of Honor, Retrospective Exhibition of Paintings by Mark Tobey, Mar. 31 - May 6, 1951 (Seattle, Washington, Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington, May 20 - June 27, 1951; Santa Barbara, California, Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Aug. 16 - Sept. 9, 1951; New York, New York, Whitney Museum of American Art, Oct. 4, 1951 - Nov. 4, 1951; Cat. no. 1, reproduced [as Agate World]).

Houston, Texas, Contemporary Arts Association, Contemporary Calligraphers: John Marin, Mark Tobey, Morris Graves, Apr. 12, 1956 - May 13, 1956. Text by Frederick S. Wight. No cat. no., n.p., reproduced.

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Henry Clay Frick Fine Arts Department, University of Pittsburgh, Calligraphy: The Symbolic Line in the Art of Writing and in the Arts of Form, Apr. 15 - May 11, 1957. Text by Walter Read Hovey. Cat. no. 98, not reproduced.

San Francisco, California, San Francisco Museum of Art, Art in Asia and the West, Oct. 28 - Dec. 1, 1957. Cat. no. 28r, not reproduced.

Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, Mark Tobey: A Retrospective Exhibition From Northwest Collections, Sept. 11 - Nov. 1, 1959 (Portland, Oregon, Portland Art Museum, Dec.1959 - Jan. 1960; Colorado Springs, Colorado, Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, Jan. 1960 - Feb.1960; Pasadena, California, Pasadena Art Museum, Feb.1960 - Mar. 1960; San Francisco, California, M. H. DeYoung Memorial Museum, Mar. 1960 - Apr. 1960). Text by Edward B. Thomas. Cat. no. 103, not reproduced.

Paris, France, Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Palais du Louvre, Pavillon de Marsan, Rétrospective Mark Tobey, Oct.18 - Dec. 1, 1961, Cat. no. 49, reproduced pl. 22 (London, England, The Whitechapel Art Gallery, Retrospective Exhibition Mark Tobey, Jan. 31 - Mar. 4, 1962. Cat. no. 30, reproduced pl. 13; Brussels, Belgium, Palais des Beaux Arts, October 18-[closing date not recorded], 1962).

New York, New York, The Museum of Modern Art, Mark Tobey, Sept. 12 - Nov. 4, 1962 (Cleveland, Ohio, The Cleveland Museum of Art, Dec. 11, 1962 - Jan. 13, 1963; Chicago, Illinois, The Art Institute of Chicago, Feb. 22, 1963 - Mar. 24, 1963). Text by William C. Seitz. Cat no. 44, not reproduced.

Renton, Washington, Renton Creative Arts Festival, Invitational Exhibition, August 1967.

Dallas, Texas, Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, Mark Tobey Retrospective, March 20-April 21, 1968. Text by Merrill C. Rueppel. Cat no. 34, n.p., reproduced.

Tacoma, Washington, Kittredge Art Gallery, University of Puget Sound, Northwest Art, 1969.

Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, Tobey's 80: A Retrospective Exhibition From Northwest Collectors, Dec. 3, 1970 - Jan. 31, 1971. Text by Betty Bowen. Cat. no. 51, n.p., reproduced.

Seattle, Washington, Poster: Farwest/Acme Inc. Printers, 1974 (color).

Miami, Florida, The Art Gallery, Miami-Dade Community College, Mark Tobey 1930-1967: A Selection of Works From The Seattle Art Museum, Dec.1, 1975 - Jan. 29, 1976. Text by Willis F. Woods. Cat. no. 14, p. 24, reproduced.

Houston, Texas, Contemporary Arts Museum, In Our Time: Houston's Contemporary Arts Museum, 1948-1982, October 22, 1982-February 20, 1983. No cat. no., not reproduced [Exhibition displayed works of art representing past Contemporary Arts Museum exhibitions. Agate World represented, Contemporary Calligraphers: John Marin, Mark Tobey, Morris Graves, 1956].

Miami, Florida, Lowe Art Museum, University of Miami, Abstract Expressionism Other Dimensions: An Introduction to Small Scale Painterly Abstraction in America, 1940-1965, Oct. 26, 1989 - Dec. 3, 1989 (Chicago, Illinois, Terra Museum of American Art, Jan. 23, 1990 - Mar. 11, 1990; New Brunswick, New Jersey, The Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers University, Mar. 25, 1990 - June 13, 1990). Text by Jeffrey Wechsler. Cat. no. 137, not reproduced.

Geneva, Switzerland, Musée d'art et d'histoire de Genève, 1945 or the Figures of Freedom: New Artistic Expressions of the Immediate Period After World War II, Oct. 26, 1995 - Jan. 7, 1996.

Tacoma, Washington, Tacoma Art Museum, Northwest Mythology: The Interactions of Mark Tobey, Morris Graves, Kenneth Callahan and Guy Anderson, May 3, 2003 - Aug. 10, 2003. Text by Laura Landau and Sheryl Conkelton. No cat. no., p. 129, reproduced.

Eugene, Oregon, University of Oregon, Inaugural Installation of the Jordan Mina Schnitzer American and Regional Art Gallery, Jan. 21, 2005 - Jan. 21, 2007.

Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, Modernism in the Pacific Northwest: The Mythic and the Mystical, June 19 - Sept. 7, 2014. Text by Patricia Junker. No cat. no., pp. 16-17, reproduced pl. 7.

Published ReferencesClysdale, Heather Colburn, The International Chinese Snuff Bottle Society, "Journal", Autumn 2008, pg. 13

Johns, Barbara. Kenjiro Nomura American Modernist: An Issei Artist's Journey. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2021; p. 110, reproduced fig. 4.25.

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