2. Artists & stock
3. Théo Tobiasse
4. Biography

Notes of biography

Théo Tobiasse is born is Israel in 1927 of Lithuanian parents. Insurmountable financial difficulties force the family to Kovno, then to Paris, where his father, a typographer, hopes to find work. Théo Tobiasse is six years old; this exhausting, interminable voyage, this displacement, will impregnate the painter’s entire oeuvre with the scent of exile. His dissimilarity, his accent, the look of “otherness”, will force Tobiasse to rely on no one but himself. War time…Paris is under the Nazi’s heel. Tobiasse briefly attends the Ecole des Arts Décoratifs, before discriminatory laws require him to go into hiding; the Tobiasse family will remain confined two long years in their tiny apartment.
When he finally sees daylight again, Théo Tobiasse has amassed an important portfolio of drawings that were made during his confinement. He conceives and creates window displays of luxury goods, designs numerous tapestry patterns; during more than fifteen years, Théo Tobiasse will design advertising materials, first in Paris, then in Nice where he settles in 1950. As soon as he can, often at night, he paints. He receives recognition in 1960 during an exhibition of young painters in Nice. Théo Tobiasse decides to devote himself to painting in 1962.
His themes, initially profane, quickly evolve towards reminiscences of his childhood, some elements of which become true symbols for the artist. These “pictorial words”, specific to the artist, will mix with biblical themes, the recurring theme of exile, erotic fantasies. Tobiasse’s work speaks of the past, undoubtedly to better anticipate the future. His canvases, like his important works on paper (engravings, lithographs, drawings) are woven of crowds of people, women, children, sun, stars, but also of candelabras that are lights of hope. Passionate about art and life, working furiously, the painter Tobiasse makes engravings, sculpts, models, writes - keeping fantastic daily journals - creating ceramics, bronzes, drawings, making frescoes, stained-glass windows, etc.
Many solo exhibitions marked his artistic career in France and abroad. Théo Tobiasse, an attentive man, a courteous man with eyes illuminated by life, full of a zeal that will never end, lives and works in Saint-Paul-de-Vence (Alpes Maritimes, France), where he settled in 1976.
In friendship, in swirls of colour!
The artist died in 2012.

“What shores are these, where memory dies?” - Théo Tobiasse

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