Artist. He received world-wide acclaim for his abstract tone-on-tone white paintings. He was described by “Life” magazine in the September 1953 issue as being one of the four leaders in the Northwest School of Artists, the “Northwest Mystics.” Before leaving school in the tenth grade, when his father became ill, he took art classes in high school. Later, he had classes in watercolors and oils at the Art Institute of Chicago from 1906 to 1908. As basically a self-taught charcoal portrait artist, he came to New York City with work that was excepted to fashion editors for a job at “McCall's Magazine”. He started to have sitters for portraits and soon became well-known for being an artist that was capable of capturing a person's likeness. His first show in 1917 at the Knoedler's Gallery consisted of charcoal portraits of celebrities. Since he was in New York City, he applied for art scholarships but every time rejected. His art pieces evolved from portrait drawings to abstract paintings in bright colors to, by the 1940's, tone-on-tone white and gray abstracts, which made him famous. Some of his caricatures were published in the “New York Times” before he moved to Seattle, Washington after a failed marriage in 1923. In 1928, he traveled to Victoria, British Columbia to teach an art course at Canadian artist Emily Carr's studio. He soon returned to New York City to teach at the Cornish School of the Arts for two years before becoming a gypsy traveling for three decades to England, Mexico, Asia and then Paris, Rome, back to New York City, Chicago, Illinois and Seattle, Washington. In 1929, he was juror for the Northwest Annual Exhibition and had a solo show at Romany Marie's Cafe Gallery in New York; his work was seen by the curator of the Museum of Modern Art and pieces were selected to be in a December 1930 show. In 1930 he was artist-in-resident at Dartington Hall in Devon, England teaching art classes while traveling to Mexico and through Europe with British potter, Bernard Leach. Then he toured China and Japan. Thirty-one pieces of art brought from England to Japan to be published was destroyed on departure from Japan by the government without any stated reason, but he did learn the technique Asian calligraphy. With Europe entering War World II, he left England in 1938 for the last time with his student, Carl Collins replacing him. A few of his pieces remain in trust at Dartington Hall. Although not caring for the big-city life of New York City, he captured while in England the spirit of the city in his three paintings “Welcome Hero,” “Broadway Norm,” and “Broadway” in 1935; he received a $500 award for “Broadway” in 1942 at the “Artist for Victory” exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In 1944 he had a show at the Wallad Gallery and later at the Galerid Beyeter in Basel, Switzerland. For eleven years he work with the WPA for the United States Federal government as an art teacher. In 1956 he was elected a member of the National Institute of Arts and 1958 placed first for a painting at the 29th Venice Beinnale. After living in Seattle, Washington for twenty years, he immigrated to Switzerland in 1960. Later, he was offered his own residence with a museum in Seattle but instead refused staying in Switzerland. In 1961, he became the first American painter to exhibit at Pavillon de Marsan in Paris and was awarded first place at the Carnegie International Art Show in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. With him being the pianist for the background music, Harvard University produced the film “Mark Tobey: Artist,” which debuted at Venice and Edinburgh film festivals. From 1966 until his death, he was an art dealer. A solo show was held at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City in 1962, and at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam in 1966. A major retrospective show was at the National Collection of Fine Arts in Washington D. C. in 1974. Entering the hospital in February before his death, he suffered with chronic bronchitis before dying from respiratory failure. His obituary states that his funeral was held at St. Alban's Church in Basel, Switzerland and buried there. As a child his family were devote Congregationalists, but as an adult, Mark George Tobey adhered to the Bahai faith. His paintings are sought by collectors as well as seen in the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art, The Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, the Chicago Art Institute, the Boston Museum of Fine Art, Phillips Memorial Gallery in Washington, Smithsonian Museum of Art, the Tate Gallery in London, the Museum of Modern Art in New York City and Whitney Museum of American Art. Shows featuring his art are still being held.