Tobias Schneebaum Abstract Oil Painting, 1954

Item Details

Tobias Schneebaum (American, 1922-2005)
Untitled, late 20th century
Oil painting on board
Signed to the lower left

American artist, anthropologist, and AIDS activist, Tobia Schneebaums art spanned borders in many ways. After receiving a degree from City College of New York in Mathematics and Art in 1943, Schneebaums served as a radar repairman in the U.S. Army during World War II. Studying for a brief time with artist Rufino Tamayo at the Brooklyn Museum of Art in 1947, the artist moved to Mexico where he lived and painted with the Lacandon tribe. Winning a Fulbright in 1955, Schneedbaums hitch hiked from New York to Peru where he lived with the Harakmbut people for seven months. He recounts his journeys, which include engaging in a cannibalistic ritual with the tribe in his 1969 memoir ‘Keep the River on your Right.’ After years more of traveling across the globe wiring and painting, Schneebaum settled down in the Westbeth Artist’s Community, home to both Merce Cunningham and Diane Arbus as well where he painting up until his death in 2005. His dynamic mixed media work is often geometric and rhythmic and were inspired by his many experiences. Today Schneebaum’s art can be found in a number of private collections.

Condition

- wear to edges of frame; surface wear present to painting; craquelure present throughout painting; dust and accretions present to painting and frame; loss of left edge of frame.

Dimensions

- measures frame; visible image measures 48" W x 30" H.

Item #

ITMG566712