Frank Lobdell (1921 - 2013) was an American painter, often associated with the

Bay Area Figurative Movement The Bay Area Figurative Movement (also known as the Bay Area Figurative School, Bay Area Figurative Art, Bay Area Figuration, and similar variations) was a mid-20th Century art movement made up of a group of artists in the San Francisco Bay Area w ...

and Bay Area Abstract Expressionism.

Life and career

Frank Lobdell was born on August 23, 1921 in

Kansas City The Kansas City metropolitan area is a bi-state metropolitan area anchored by Kansas City, Missouri. Its 14 counties straddle the border between the U.S. states of Missouri (9 counties) and Kansas (5 counties). With and a population of more th ...

Missouri Missouri is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking 21st in land area, it is bordered by eight states (tied for the most with Tennessee): Iowa to the north, Illinois, Kentucky and Tennessee to the east, Arkansas t ...

, and raised in

Minnesota Minnesota () is a state in the upper midwestern region of the United States. It is the 12th largest U.S. state in area and the 22nd most populous, with over 5.75 million residents. Minnesota is home to western prairies, now given over t ...

. He attended the St. Paul School of Fine Arts, St. Paul, Minnesota in 1939-40, and painted independently in Minneapolis from 1940-42. He served in the U.S. Army in Europe during World War II (1942–46).'Frank Lobdell, influential Bay Area painter, dies' by Jesse Hamlin, ''SF Gate'', Thursday, December 19, 2013; http://www.sfgate.com/art/article/Frank-Lobdell-influential-Bay-Area-painter-dies-5076592.php retvd 7 29 14 Following the war, he moved to Sausalito, CA (1946–49), and from 1947-50 he attended the California School of Fine Arts on the G.I. Bill.The Annex Galleries - Frank Lobdell biography; http://www.annexgalleries.com/artists/biography/1417/Lobdell/Frank retvd 7 29 14 In 1950, he left the U.S. for Paris, where he painted and studied at L’

Academie de la Grande Chaumiere An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary or tertiary higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membership). The name traces back to Plato's school of philosop ...

in 1950-51. After returning to the Bay Area, he taught at CSFA from 1957 to 1964. He was Visiting Artist at

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is conside ...

in 1965, and taught as Professor of Art at Stanford from 1966 until his retirement in 1991.Artists Forum - Frank Lobdell biography; http://www.artistsforum.com/Lobdell/biography.html; retvd 7 29 14 In 1959 Lobdell was invited to participate in weekly figure drawing sessions with

Elmer Bischoff Elmer Nelson Bischoff (July 9, 1916 – March 2, 1991) was a visual artist in the San Francisco Bay Area. Bischoff, along with Richard Diebenkorn and David Park, was part of the post- World War II generation of artists who started as abstract p ...

Richard Diebenkorn Richard Diebenkorn (April 22, 1922 – March 30, 1993) was an American painter and printmaker. His early work is associated with abstract expressionism and the Bay Area Figurative Movement of the 1950s and 1960s. In the late 1960s he bega ...

, and David Park, and after Park’s death, Lobdell became a regular member of the group. Although that circle broke up around 1965, Lobdell resumed his weekly drawing sessions in Palo Alto, where

Nathan Oliveira Nathan Oliveira (December 19, 1928 – November 13, 2010) was an American painter, printmaker, and sculptor, born in Oakland, California to immigrant Portuguese parents. Since the late 1950s, Oliveira has been the subject of nearly one hundred ...

, Keith Boyle, Jim Johnson, and other Stanford instructors joined him. In working from the figure, creating drawings in wash, ink, and occasionally graphite or gouache, Lobdell focused on shapes formed by light and shadow. Aspects of these figures—in a kind of abstracted shorthand—reemerge in the artist’s paintings, drawings, and prints. In 1960, Lobdell was awarded the Nealie Sullivan Award by the

San Francisco Art Association The San Francisco Art Association (SFAA) was an organization that promoted California artists, held art exhibitions, published a periodical, and established the first art school west of Chicago. The SFAA – which, by 1961, completed a long sequence ...

. Subsequent honors include a Pew Foundation Grant (1986); Medal for Distinguished Achievement in Painting from the

American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters The American Academy of Arts and Letters is a 300-member honor society whose goal is to "foster, assist, and sustain excellence" in American literature, music, and art. Its fixed number membership is elected for lifetime appointments. Its headq ...

(1988); and Academy Purchase Awards in 1992 and 1994. In 1998 he was elected to the National Academy of Design.Artists Forum - Frank Lobdell artists profile; http://www.artistsforum.com/Lobdell/profile.html retvd 7 29 14 Lobdell died of cardiopulmonary arrest on December 14, 2013, in Palo Alto, at age 92.

Exhibitions

Exhibiting internationally as early as 1951, Lobdell’s work was included in exhibitions at the

Petit Palais The Petit Palais (; en, Small Palace) is an art museum in the 8th arrondissement of Paris, France. Built for the 1900 Exposition Universelle ("universal exhibition"), it now houses the City of Paris Museum of Fine Arts (''Musée des beaux-arts ...

, Paris, the Third Biennial of São Paulo, the Osaka International Festival, Japan, as well as venues in London, Turin, and Eindhoven, including early solo exhibitions in Paris and Geneva. He showed regularly in solo and group exhibitions in New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco throughout the 1950s and 1960s, including at the

Walker Art Center The Walker Art Center is a multidisciplinary contemporary art center in the Lowry Hill neighborhood of Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. The Walker is one of the most-visited modern and contemporary art museums in the United States and, to ...

(1960); The

Whitney Museum of American Art The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is an art museum in the Meatpacking District and West Village neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1930 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875–194 ...

(1962); and the

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, often referred to as The Guggenheim, is an art museum at 1071 Fifth Avenue on the corner of East 89th Street on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It is the permanent home of a continuously exp ...

, New York (1964). Solo museum exhibitions include San Francisco’s M. H. de Young Memorial Museum (1960, 1992); a major retrospective exhibition, “Paintings and Graphics from 1948 to 1965,” at the Pasadena Art Museum and Stanford University Art Museum (1966); “Frank Lobdell: Works, 1947-1992,” Stanford University Art Museum (1993);

California Palace of the Legion of Honor The Legion of Honor, formally known as the California Palace of the Legion of Honor, is an art museum in San Francisco, California. Located in Lincoln Park, the Legion of Honor is a component of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, which a ...

Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (FAMSF), comprising the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park and the Legion of Honor in Lincoln Park, is the largest public arts institution in the city of San Francisco. The permanent collection of the ...

, "Frank Lobdell: The Art of Making and Meaning" (2003);

Portland Art Museum The Portland Art Museum in Portland, Oregon, United States, was founded in 1892, making it one of the oldest art museums on the West Coast and seventh oldest in the US. Upon completion of the most recent renovations, the Portland Art Museum bec ...

, Oregon, "Frank Lobdell: Making and Meaning" (2004), and others.

Collections

Museums with works by Frank Lobdell include the

Albright-Knox Art Gallery The Buffalo AKG Art Museum, formerly known as the Albright–Knox Art Gallery, is an art museum at 1285 Elmwood Avenue, Buffalo, New York, in Delaware Park. the museum's Elmwood Avenue campus is temporarily closed for construction. It hosted e ...

, Buffalo, NY; Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, TX;

Honolulu Museum of Art Spalding House The Honolulu Museum of Art Spalding House, formerly The Contemporary Museum, Honolulu, was integrated into the Honolulu Museum of Art under this name. It was the only museum in the state of Hawaii devoted exclusively to contemporary art. The Contemp ...

(formerly The Contemporary Museum, Honolulu);

, CA;

Hood Museum of Art The Hood Museum of Art is owned and operated by Dartmouth College, located in Hanover, New Hampshire, in the United States. The first reference to the development of an art collection at Dartmouth dates to 1772, making the collection among the ...

, Dartmouth College, NH; Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts, Stanford University;

Jack S. Blanton Museum of Art The Jack S. Blanton Museum of Art (often referred to as the Blanton or the BMA) at the University of Texas at Austin is one of the largest university art museums in the U.S. with 189,340 square feet devoted to temporary exhibitions, permanent col ...

, University of Texas, Austin;

Los Angeles County Museum of Art The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) is an art museum located on Wilshire Boulevard in the Miracle Mile vicinity of Los Angeles. LACMA is on Museum Row, adjacent to the La Brea Tar Pits (George C. Page Museum). LACMA was founded in 19 ...

; The

Menil Collection The Menil Collection, located in Houston, Texas, refers either to a museum that houses the art collection of founders John de Menil and Dominique de Menil, or to the collection itself of approximately 17,000 paintings, sculptures, prints, drawing ...

, Houston;

Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego The Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego (or MCASD), in San Diego, California, US, is an art museum focused on the collection, preservation, exhibition, and interpretation of works of art from 1950 to the present. Mission The stated mission of ...

; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York;

National Academy of Design The National Academy of Design is an honorary association of American artists, founded in New York City in 1825 by Samuel Morse, Asher Durand, Thomas Cole, Martin E. Thompson, Charles Cushing Wright, Ithiel Town, and others "to promote the ...

, New York;

National Gallery of Art The National Gallery of Art, and its attached Sculpture Garden, is a national art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, located on the National Mall, between 3rd and 9th Streets, at Constitution Avenue NW. Open to the public and free of ch ...

, Washington, DC;

National Museum of American Art The Smithsonian American Art Museum (commonly known as SAAM, and formerly the National Museum of American Art) is a museum in Washington, D.C., part of the Smithsonian Institution. Together with its branch museum, the Renwick Gallery, SAAM holds ...

, Smithsonian Institution; The

Oakland Museum of California The Oakland Museum of California or OMCA (formerly the Oakland Museum) is an interdisciplinary museum dedicated to the art, history, and natural science of California, located adjacent to Oak Street, 10th Street, and 11th Street in Oakland, Cal ...

;

Phoenix Art Museum The Phoenix Art Museum is the largest museum for visual art in the southwest United States. Located in Phoenix, Arizona, the museum is . It displays international exhibitions alongside its comprehensive collection of more than 18,000 works of ...

, AZ;

, OR;

Racine Art Museum The Racine Art Museum (RAM) and RAM's Charles A. Wustum Museum of Fine Arts are located in Racine, Wisconsin, U.S. The museum holds the largest and most significant contemporary craft collection in North America, with more than 9,500 objects from ...

, WI;

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) is a modern and contemporary art museum located in San Francisco, California. A nonprofit organization, SFMOMA holds an internationally recognized collection of modern and contemporary art, and was ...

; San Jose Museum of Art, CA; University of California,

Berkeley Art Museum The Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA, formerly abbreviated as BAM/PFA) are a combined art museum, repertory movie theater, and archive associated with the University of California, Berkeley. Lawrence Rinder was Director from ...

, and many others.

External links

Frank Lobdell: An Oral History
Stanford Historical Society Oral History Program, 2009.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lobdell, Frank Artists from the San Francisco Bay Area 1921 births 2013 deaths 21st-century American painters American Figurative Expressionism American Expressionist painters American abstract artists American male painters 20th-century American painters Stanford University Department of Art and Art History faculty Artists from Minnesota Artists from Kansas City, Missouri San Francisco Art Institute faculty San Francisco Art Institute alumni United States Army personnel of World War II 20th-century American male artists