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Frank Lobdell
Painting; Printmaking
American
(Kansas City, Missouri, 1921 - 2013, Palo Alto, California)


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Biography

Best known for his intense and brooding paintings, Frank Lobdell is perhaps one of the most compelling artists to emerge from the San Francisco school of abstract expressionism. Though he remained an “artist’s artist” throughout the early years of his career, gaining recognition in New York and abroad while living in relative obscurity locally, Lobdell eventually emerged as one of the most celebrated painters and teachers in the Bay Area. Along with fellow abstract expressionists Richard Diebenkorn, Hassel Smith, and Clyfford Still, Lobdell resisted the overriding influences of the modern art world, and developed his own uniquely personal mode of expression. Both dark and introspective, his works are characterized by their tireless exploration of human experience and raw emotion.

Art figured strongly into Lobdell’s life beginning in early childhood. During his developmental years, he exhibited a notable proclivity toward drawing, which was encouraged by both his parents and teachers. Following high school he enrolled at the St. Paul School of Fine Arts in Minnesota. In 1940, alongside fellow student Walter Kuhlman, Lobdell traveled to Chicago to see the Picasso retrospective at the Art Institute. Fascinated by Picasso’s work, Lobdell was, for the first time, acutely aware of the power of art to evoke a strong emotional response.
In 1942, Lobdell left art school to serve in World War II. Four years later, he relocated to the Bay Area where he resumed his art education at the California School of Fine Arts (now San Francisco Art Institute) with the benefit of the GI Bill. It was here that he first encountered the community of artists who would later form the San Francisco school of abstract expressionism. Like their East Coast counterparts, the work of San Francisco-based abstract expressionists was deeply affected by World War II. Many of the artists working in the 1940s and 1950s, particularly those on the West Coast, had served in combat, and the horrific scenes they witnessed stayed with them and were exorcised in their art. The visual vocabularies of the two schools of artists differed, however—West Coast artists relied on rough surface textures and broad application of color rather than the gestural brushstrokes used by New York artists such as Willem de Kooning and Jackson Pollock.

Having served as a lieutenant in the infantry near the Ardennes during the Battle of the Bulge, Lobdell was among the San Francisco artists whose vision was most profoundly shaped by the war. The brutality of the conflict, followed by the political and social unrest of the McCarthy Era, was instrumental in his formation of a largely despondent view of the human condition. As a result, his paintings often appear tormented and burdened, revealing what art historian Herschel Chipp describes as the “agony of a human organism confronted with an environment that offers little that is certain—no horizon, no gravity, no substance.”1 Indeed, human vulnerability arises as a chief theme in Lobdell’s work, particularly in the decades immediately following World War II.

Central to February 1963, a work dating from the best years of Lobdell’s abstract expressionist period, is the artist’s struggle to locate meaning in an increasingly nonsensical and disaffected world. Though much of his earlier work was characterized by dark, murky hues, which suggested an overriding feeling of depression, Lobdell’s palette tended toward brighter colors in the 1960s, moving from black to deep reds and eventually to golden yellows. Using a thick impasto, the artist built up paint in order to emphasize the scabrous, tactile quality of the work. Although the imagery in February 1963 remains enigmatic, the central womblike or podlike cavern suggests a vaguely anthropomorphic form. The diagonal orientation of the form alludes to the concept of ascension, a theme that is prevalent in much of Lobdell’s work from this period and the years preceding. As art historian Susan Landauer points out, “Lobdell’s forms climb heavily and arduously”2 as if engaged in a futile search for meaning and understanding of the complex world in which we live.

Alternately fascinated and tormented by his experiences, Lobdell’s paintings reveal his ongoing commitment to expressing the authenticity of the inner journey. Marked by the evolution of process, subject and symbol, his work defies conventional definition, often existing in the ambiguous space between abstraction and figuration. But while the paintings, and thus the artist, seem to defy definition, Lobdell’s lasting power is anything but ambiguous. —L.W.

1. Herschel Chipp, quoted in Susan Landauer, The San Francisco School of Abstract Expressionism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), 146.
2. Landauer, 144.

(SJMA Selections publication, 2004)

Frank Lobdell was born in Kansas City, Missouri in 1921. He studied at the St. Paul School of Art, Minnesota for one year in 1939 and then painted independently in Minneapolis. In 1942 he entered the army and completed his duty in 1946. He then attended the California School of Fine Arts, San Francisco on the G.I. Bill of Rights from 1947 to 1950, after which he began teaching at the San Francisco Art Institute. His work has been shown in numerous one-person exhibitions, including a show at M.H. de Young Memorial Museum, San Francisco; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Pasadena Art Museum; and Stanford University Art Museum, Palo Alto, California.

This would be the eighth piece by Lobdell to enter SJMA’s permanent collection. (SJMA Collections Committee, 2010)

Born in Kansas City, Missouri in 1921, Lobdell exhibited a proclivity toward drawing as a child, which was encouraged by both his parents and teachers. He enrolled at the St. Paul School of Art, Minnesota in 1939 and then painted independently in Minneapolis. In 1940, Lobdell traveled to Chicago to see the Picasso retrospective at the Art Institute. Fascinated by Picasso’s work, Lobdell was, for the first time, acutely aware of the power of art to evoke a strong emotional response. In 1942 he entered the army, completing his duty in 1946. Lobdell then attended the California School of Fine Arts in San Francisco on the G.I. Bill from 1947 to 1950. It was here that he first encountered the community of artists who would later form the San Francisco school of abstract expressionism, including Richard Diebenkorn, Hassel Smith, and Clyfford Still. Having served in the infantry near the Ardennes during the Battle of the Bulge, Lobdell was among the San Francisco artists whose vision was most profoundly shaped by the war. Lobdell taught at CSFA from 1957 to 1965, and then at Stanford University from 1966 to 1991. He currently lives in San Francisco. [Bio from Juicy Paint Exhibition, input by R. Faust, 8/11/2010]

Frank Lobdell was born in Kansas City, Missouri in 1921. He studied at the St. Paul School of Art in St. Paul, Minnesota for one year in 1939 and then painted independently in Minneapolis. In 1942 he entered the army, completing his duty in 1946. He then attended the California School of Fine Arts in San Francisco on the G.I. Bill of Rights from 1947 to 1950. Following this, he began teaching at the San Francisco Art Institute. His work has been shown in numerous one-person exhibitions, including a show at M.H. de Young Memorial Museum in San Francisco, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Pasadena Art Museum, and Stanford University Art Museum. This will be the first painting by Lobdell to enter the collection. SJMA owns five works on paper by the artist. (SJMA Collections Committee, 2002)


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