TOBIASSE Théo

" Le Cantique des Cantiques - the blue bird ", Thé TOBIASSE

Original lithograph
Handsigned in pencil by the artist.
Numbered in pencil 134/150
Size of the paper : 51x36cm.
Date : 2009.

Théo Tobiasse (civil name: Tobias Eidesas )

Born in 1927 in Jaffa in Palestine and died in 2012 in Cagnes-sur-mer.

After spending some time in Lithuania, he arrives as a child with his family in Paris in 1931. The death of his mother, the Second World War with the wearing of the yellow star, the refusal at the Ecole Supérieure des Arts Decorative because of its origins and the obligation to hide in a Paris apartment for two years will upset his life. He will first turn to commercials and become a successful designer.

But his passion for painting will take over. His first paintings were exhibited at the Salon des peintres du Sud-Est in 1960. In 1961 he won the prize for the "young Mediterranean painting". Théo Tobiasse also won the Dorothy Gould Prize in 1961. He decided to devote himself entirely to the visual arts. Many exhibitions are dedicated to him all over the world, in Paris, Geneva, Montreal, Tokyo, London, Zurich, Lauzanne, Los Angeles, Kiev, New York, Prague ... 

Theo Tobiasse develops, in a style that is at once surrealistic, expressionist and a little primitive, a personal iconography drawn from his own memories of his childhood in Lithuania, the wanderings of a family seeking a land of asylum and the Holocaust. Then, from his many travels, he will immerse himself in the new cultures he meets, New Orleans jazz, Mexican archeological sites, American totem poles. Three major themes will cross his work: the cities that are dear to him (Paris, Jerusalem, New York and Venice), the Bible, the woman-lover, erotic and shameless.

Multidisciplinary, he is also known for his stained glass windows, ceramics, carborundum carvings and sculptures. He even developed a technique for making lithographs of eighteen to twenty colors. 

The artist is internationally recognized, and his works are present in many private collections, companies and museums around the world.