Rebecca Tobey
| Rebecca Tobey | |
|---|---|
 Dawn Racer, ceramic (2011) | |
| Born |
1948 |
| Nationality | American |
| Known for | Sculpture |
| Website | |
| RebeccaTobey.com | |
Rebecca Tobey (born 1948) is an American contemporary sculptor.
Early years
Rebecca was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan and spent most of her childhood in Oak Ridge, Tennessee as one of three children of Elizabeth and Arthur Upton. Her mother was a painter and her father spent his professional life working as a scientist who would later chair the National Cancer Institute.
As a child, Rebecca developed an affinity for animals and nature. During the summers spent at a cottage at Watts Bar Lake, she and her brother and sister would spend hours outdoors, playing and hiking, mimicking the calls of mourning doves and bobwhite quail, catching snakes, and living the life of Huckleberry Finn. Rebecca’s parents also ensured that she had a well-balanced upbringing, exposing her to the opera and taking her to the great art museums of the East Coast and shows at the Boston Symphony.[1]
As a teenager, Rebecca attended boarding school in Lowell, Maryland at Rogers Hall School. One day, Rebecca asked her art teacher if she had the skills to follow her passion and become an artist. “She told me that neither my talent nor my skills were good enough and to major in something else.” [1]
She graduated from New York’s Adelphi University in 1972 with a master’s degree in theater arts. One of Rebecca’s first jobs after graduate school was designing classroom learning environments for a United States Department of Education Training Institute on Long Island, New York.
Santa Fe
During September 1975, Rebecca visited Santa Fe, New Mexico to attend Fiesta. She felt and instant connection to the city, saying, "It was as if I had finally ‘come home.’" She returned to New York, broke her lease, quit her job and moved to Santa Fe by December. In 1976, Rebecca married her college sweetheart Denny Olmstead. They had two daughters before divorcing in 1983.[1]
In 1984, Rebecca met sculptor Gene Tobey while working as a director of a Santa Fe art gallery that featured Gene’s raku pottery. The following year, the couple opened Gallery Five in Santa Fe’s Springer Plaza, but poor sales prompted them to close the business after just three months.[2] Following their marriage in 1985, Rebecca and Gene began developing brightly colored ceramic sculptures, which had evolved from dishes and practical ceramics to stylized animals. Rebecca did the glazing, imbuing the sculptures with color before the final firing.
Over time, she developed her own techniques and ideas about the kind of surfaces to enhance the three-dimensional qualities of the sculptures. By 1987, Gene decided that Rebecca’s contribution to the work deserved its own recognition, and the Tobey collaboration was officially born.[3]
Partners in art
Over the years, Tobey sculptures were typically characterized by a spiritual intensity and a style that was both sophisticated and primal. The work appeared as sleek silhouettes from afar, but when viewed up close revealed a maze if glyphs and symbols. The sgraffito drawings often portrayed other animals, mountain ranges, human figures, symbols and geometric shapes.
Both Rebecca and Gene admired aboriginal art and tribal art from South America and Africa. "A lot of our imagery has to do with ‘the West’ and its wildness and freedom," says Rebecca. "We find that, as we are, many people are fascinated by the West and what it represents—from the days of the Anasazi to those of the cowboy and Indians to pioneer days, ranching and cattle drives—a different way of life."[3]
Tobeys’ sculpture was commissioned for public and private collections in the United States and internationally. Among their most popular works was the six-foot-tall bronze grizzly bear named Pathfinder. In 1994, the work was placed at Western State College in Gunnison, Colorado, where students created a custom of kissing the bear for good luck during exams.[4]
In 2000, the Tobeys contributed to Baylor University a monumental 15-foot-tall bear named Spirit Walker, which has drawings on its surface depicting the history of Waco, Texas, where Baylor is located.[5]
Gene died in 2006, following complications with leukemia. In the months following Gene's death, Rebecca dedicated a six-foot-tall bronze grizzly bear to the University of New Mexico Cancer Center.[6]
Rebecca currently shows at several galleries in the western United States.
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Tobey, Rebecca. Partners in Art: Gene and Rebecca Tobey, p. 34, 35. Fresco Fine Art Publications, 2007. ISBN 978-1-934491-02-7 LCCCN 2007936652
- ↑ "Biography: Gene and Rebecca Tobey". Exposures International Fine Art Gallery.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 "Tobey Collaboration". Karin Newby Gallery and Sculptor Garden.
- ↑ Tobey, Rebecca. Partners in Art: Gene and Rebecca Tobey, p. 260. Fresco Fine Art Publications, 2007. ISBN 978-1-934491-02-7 LCCCN 2007936652
- ↑ "Rebecca Tobey at Exposures Gallery". September 30, 2010.
- ↑ Steinberg, David (June 6, 2010). "No need to beware bear bearing gifts". Albuquerque Journal.
External links
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