Middle West; also American Landscape, 1927

1929

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

It was Director Fuller's practice to invite prize-winning artists from the museum's Northwest Annual exhibitions to have one-person shows. Fuller made acquisitions for the museum from these shows, and encouraged other collectors in Seattle to do the same. In 1942 Tobey was given a solo exhibition, and, though he had already moved to his "white writing" style, he included this much earlier representational work. This painting had won acclaim at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1930, but for reasons unknown the artist kept the canvas rolled up for years.

Oil on canvas

37 x 59 1/8 in. (94 x 150.2.cm)

Gift of Mrs. Thomas D. Stimson

42.20

Provenance: the artist; purchased for the Seattle Art Museum from Tobey's solo museum show, April 1942, by Mrs. Thomas D. Stimson

Photo: Elizabeth Mann

Not currently on view

Resources

Exhibition HistoryNew York, New York, Romany Marie's Cafe Gallery, Paintings and Drawings by Mark Tobey, Dec. 2 - 31, 1929 (as Middle West).

New York, New York, Museum of Modern Art, Painting and Sculpture by Living Americans, Dec. 2, 1930 - Jan. 20, 1931. Cat. no. 87, reproduced (as American Landscape).

London, England, Beaux Arts Gallery, Mark Tobey, Feb. 6 - 24, 1934.

Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, Mark Tobey, Apr. 1942.

San Francisco, California Palace of the Legion of Honor, Retrospective Exhibition of Paintings By Mark Tobey, Mar. 31 - May 6, 1951 (Seattle, Washington, Henry 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 - Nov. 4, 1951).

Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, Mark Tobey: A Retrospective Exhibition From Northwest Collections, Sept. 11 - Nov. 1, 1959 (Portland, Oregon, Portland Art Museum, Dec. 1950 - Jan. 1960; Colorado Springs, Colorado Fine Arts Center, Jan. - Feb. 1960; Pasadena, California, Pasadena Art Museum, Feb - Mar. 1960; San Francisco, California, M. H. De Young Memorial Museum, Mar. - Apr. 1960).

Dallas, Texas, Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, Mark Tobey Retrospective, Mar. 20 - Apr. 21, 1968.

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, University of Pennsylvania Institute of Contemporary Art, The Highway, 1970 (Houston, Texas, Institute for the Arts, Rice University; Akron, Ohio, Akron Art Institute, Ohio, 1970).

Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, Tobey's 80: A Retrospective Exhibition From Northwest Collectors, Dec. 3, 1970 - Jan. 31, 1971.

Omaha, Nebraska, Joslyn Art Museum, The Thirties Decade: American Artists and Their European Contemporaries, Oct. 10 - Nov. 28, 1971. Text by Allen Porter. Cat. no. 194 (as Middle West).

New York, New York, Yoshii Gallery, Mark Tobey, Paintings 1920-1960, Oct. 27 - Dec. 17, 1994.

Eugene, Oregon, Jordan Mina Schnitzer American and Regional Art Gallery, University of Oregon, [inaugural installation], Jan. 21, 2005 - Jan. 21, 2007. No catalogue.

Andover, Massachusetts, Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy, Mark Tobey: Threading Light, Nov. 4, 2017 - Mar. 11, 2018 (Venice, Italy, Peggy Guggenheim Collection, May 6 - Sept. 17, 2017). Text by Debra Bricker Balkan. No cat. no., pp. 40, 47, 63, 68, 74, 191, reproduced p. 44, pl. 16.

Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, New Topographics, June 30, 2018 - Apr. 14, 2019.

Published ReferencesToomey, Tom. "Mark Tobey," The Town Crier (August 1, 1931): p. 7, reproduced.

"Modern Museum Shows Work of 37 More Painters and Sculptors," Art Digest 5, no. 5 (Dec. 1, 1930): 9, reproduced [as American Landscape].

Callahan, Kenneth. "Pacific Northwest," Art News (July 1946): reproduced. p. 55.

Musee des Arts Decoratifs, Mark Tobey. Paris: Musee des arts decoratifs, 1961; preproduced . p. 7.

Canaday, John. "'Vibrant Space' of Mark Tobey," New York Times Magazine (September 9, 1962): p. 65.

Seitz, William C. Mark Tobey. Exh. cat. New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1962; p. 47, reproduced p. 42.

Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, Texas, cat., "Mark Tobey Retrospective," (1968), pl. 3

Seattle Art Museum, "Mark Tobey Retrospective, NW Coll.," (1959) cat. #17, ill.

Seattle Art Museum, "Tobey's 80, A Birthday Retrospective," 1970, no. 5

Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, Nebraska, cat., "The Thirties Decade: American Artists and their European Contemporaries," (1971), no. 194

Martha Kingsbury in National Collection of Fine Arts cat. by Smithsonian Institution Press (1974), "Art of the Pacific Northwest from the 1930's to the Present," p. 50

Clarke, David. "The All-Over Image: Meaning in Abstract Art," in Journal of American Studies, Vol 27, No. 3 (Dec. 1993), pp. 355-375, fig. 3, p. 366

Jaeger, Veronique, et al. Mark Tobey: Tobey or Not Tobey. Exh. Cat. Paris: Galerie Jeanne Bucher Jaeger, 2020; p. 58, reproduced fig. 4 [not in exhibition].

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