THEO TOBIASSE
Demande de RenseignementsThéo Tobiasse was born in Israel in 1927. His family came from Lithuania, where they hoped to find the promised land. The artist's work is imbued with exile, the woman as mother-lover, and reminiscences of childhood in Lithuania when his parents had to return. The dacha in the verdant Kaletova countryside, the lights of the paddle steamers on the Niemen, the sledges in the snowy streets of Kovno, but also the round teapots and pot-bellied samovars, symbols of family warmth... After crossing Germany and Berlin, Tobiasse arrived in Paris in 1931, where a sad, gray train station greeted him in the early hours of the morning. The dark years of the Nazi Occupation followed, when the family remained in hiding for two years, but was decimated. He moved to Nice, then to Saint Paul de Vence, where he made the fascinating discovery of the lunar landscape of the Saint-Barnabé plateau, on the Col de Vence. This was to be his first painting. The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam brought him a second revelation: Rembrandt's The Jewish Bride introduced him to the mystery of matter and color. Memories come flooding back, like shreds of memory, and unfold at the tip of his brushes: the "mother-lover" woman, exile, the exultation of the senses, drawing, crushed color, music and travel all blend into a poetic magma against a backdrop of Venice, New York and Jerusalem, his favorite cities. Painting, sculpture, carborundum etching, pastel, drawing, pottery and stained glass are his tools for expressing engulfed emotions.Theo Tobiasse lived and worked in Saint Paul de Vence. He died on November 3, 2012.