Mark Tobey

Born 1890 and Died 1976 (85 years old

American painter his inspiration is from Asian calligraphy, resemble Abstract expressionism. He is a founder of a school  Northwest School. mostly self-taught after early studies at the Art Institute of Chicago. In 1921, Tobey founded the art department at The Cornish School in Seattle, Washington.

He studied at the Art Institute of Chicago from 1906 to 1908, but, like others of the Northwest School, was mostly self-taught.

1911, he moved to NYC where he worked as a fashion illustrator for McCall's.

1917 his first one-man show was held at Knoedler & Company in Manhattan.

He met Teng Kuei, a Chinese painter and student at the University of Washington, where he exploration of Chinese calligraphy.

 co-founded the Free and Creative Art School in Seattle with Edgar Ames, and in autumn, he taught an advanced art course at Emily Carr's Victoria studio.

1929, he participated in a show that marked a change in his life: a solo exhibition at Romany Marie's Cafe Gallery.

1931, Tobey became a resident artist of the Elmhurst Progressive School.

 Japanese authorities confiscated and destroyed an edition of 31 drawings on wet paper that Tobey had brought with him from England to be published in Japan

Tobey expected to return to teaching in England in 1938.he began to work on the Federal Art Project, under the supervision of Inverarity.

1942, Tobey's process of abstractionism was accompanied by a new calligraphic experiment.

He also spent three months as guest critic of graduate students' work at Yale University on the invitation of Josef Albers.

he became the first American painter to exhibit at the Pavillon de Marsan in Paris.