BOB TOMLINSON

Many of my paintings are drawn from literary subjects or present intentionally vague narratives whose actors hover on the frontier between figuration and abstraction. On the formal level, collaged papers and scrubbed, stippled or dripped areas of paint focus attention on the two-dimensional surface. Relief-like configurations and contrasting flat and textured areas in both the figures and the backgrounds play on the tension between figurative references and the abstract forms that ultimately suggest them. At the same time, the sensuous color and bold, sinuous contours twisting back upon themselves lead us into realms of erotic and psychological complexity. At once lyrical, ironic and melancholy, these images reminiscent of a Baroque/Rococo aesthetic present surrealist juxtapositions of imagined spirits, shrouded in enveloping mystery and haunted by the memory of apocalyptic visions.

Click here to read review in Gallery & Studio Magazine

BIOGRAPHY

Born: Brooklyn, NY 

Studied: Tyler School of Fine Arts, Philadelphia; Pratt Institute, New York; Columbia University, New York; Atelier de la Grande Chaumière, Paris 

Address: 6 Boulevard de Strasbourg, 75010 Paris, France

SELECTED EXHIBITS:

Galerie des Jeunes, Paris, 1966 (solo)

Galerie Lambert (5e Biennale de Paris), 1967 (group)

Kunsthandel 276, Amsterdam, 1968 (two-man show)

John Whibley Gallery, London, 1970 (solo)

Pratt Institute, New York, 1971 (solo)

John Whibley Gallery, London, 1974 (group)

Viridian Artists Inc, New York, 1979 (solo)

Community Arts Center, Atlanta (“Black Painting”), 1980 (group)

Phoenix Gallery, Atlanta, 1982 (group)

Evans-Tibbs Collection, Washington, 1984 (solo)

Alma Simmons Memorial Gallery (“Atlantan African-American Artists”), 1985 (group) 

”Lightworks Gallery, Glen Cove, NY, 1996 (solo)

Contemporary Black Artists in America, Great Neck NY, 1997, 1999, 2000, 2002 (group) 

“The Dances of Salomé,” Viridian Artists Inc, New York, 2005 (solo)

“Mythologies,”Farleigh Dickinson University, Hackensack, N J, 2006 (solo)

Viridian Artists Inc, New York, 2005 (solo), Farleigh Dickinson University, Hackensack, NJ, 2006 (solo)

“Still Crazy After All These Years,”Retrospective, Viridian Artists Inc, New York, 2018 (solo)

SELECTED COLLECTIONS:

* Collection of Dr. Maya Angelou, Winston-Salem, NC * Collection of Lord and Lady Hirschfield, London * Comtesse Solange de la Celle, Paris * M. Franco Trecanni, Paris/Montichiari  * Clark-Atlanta University Collection, Atlanta * City University, New York * Dr. Stosh Ostrow, San Francisco * Mr. Hamish Warren, Menorca * Mme Linda Weil-Curiel, Paris * Mr. Waldo Klick, Netherlands * M. Pierre Cochet, Paris * Mr. & Mrs. Mario Sorelli, London * Rev. & Mrs. Martin Sargent, New York * Mr. Addison Greene, New York *

RECENT BIBLIOGRAPHY

-Cynthia M. Dantzic.  100 New York Painters (New York: Schiffer, 2006).

-Ed McCormack.  “Embodying Love’s Mythic Sorrows.  Gallery and Studio, October, 2010.

-Monique Wells.  Bob Tomlinson.  Black Paris Profiles [Kindle Edition] Amazon.Com,  2012  (http://entreetoblackparis.blogspot.fr/).

 - Ed McCormack.  Soul in Exile: The New Paintings of Bob Tomlinson.  Gallery and Studio.  June/July/August, 2013.

-Tequila Minsky.  The ‘Divas and Heroes’ in Bob Tomlinson’s Life.  Caribbean Life, 20 June 2013.

-Charlotte Barat.  Artistes noirs américains à Paris (1945-1969): vie de bohème, liberté artistique et négociations identitaires.  Master’s thesis, University of Paris I, 2014.

-Elisa Capdevila.  Des Américains à Paris: artistes et bohèmes dans la France de l’après-guerre (Paris: Armand Colin, 2017).

-Louis Massiah.  How to Make a Flower: La Méthode MOBO (a short documentary film), premiered at the BlackStar Film Festival, 2020.