Théo Tobiasse was born in Israel in 1927. His family, who came from Lithuania, had hoped to find the promised land there. The work of this artist is imbued with exile, the figure of the mother-lover, and reminiscences of his childhood in Lithuania when his parents were forced to return. The dacha in the verdant countryside of Kaletova, the lights of the decorated paddle steamers on the Neman River, the sleighs in the snowy streets of Kovno, but also the round teapots and plump samovars, symbols of family warmth…

After crossing Germany and Berlin, Tobiasse arrived in Paris in 1931, where a somber, gray train station greeted him early in the morning. The dark years of the Nazi Occupation followed, during which his family, though in hiding for two years, was decimated. The death of his mother in June 1939, followed by the outbreak of World War II, Paris under German occupation, the wearing of the yellow star, and his rejection from the École nationale supérieure des arts décoratifs (National School of Decorative Arts) for racial reasons, profoundly altered his life. He enrolled in a private advertising design course on Boulevard Saint-Michel, which he abandoned nine months later because his family, having narrowly escaped the Vel' d'Hiv Roundup in July 1942, was forced to hide in a Paris apartment for two years.

After the Liberation of Paris, he quickly started a career as an advertising graphic designer at the art printer Draeger, and also produced tapestry cartoons, theatre sets and Hermès window displays on rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré.
In 1950, he obtained French citizenship and settled in Nice in the Alpes-Maritimes region, where he continued his career as a graphic designer. After the Liberation, Tobiasse dreamed only of light, sunshine, and vast skies.

He settled in Nice, then in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, where he made the fascinating discovery of the lunar landscape of the Saint-Barnabé plateau, at the Col de Vence. This would become his first painting. The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam provided him with a second revelation: Rembrandt's The Jewish Bride revealed to him the mystery of texture and color. He then understood all about glazes, washes, and chiaroscuro…

Memories then resurface like fragments of memory and unfold at the tips of her brushes: Woman as "mother and lover," exile, the exultation of the senses, drawing, manipulated color, music, and travels all blend into a poetic magma against the backdrop of Venice, New York, and Jerusalem, her favorite cities. Words and phrases laden with emotion always punctuate her work, not to explain it, but to extend it.

Painting, sculpture, carborundum engraving, pastel, drawing, pottery, stained glass are his tools for expressing swallowed emotions.

Theo Tobiasse lived and worked in Saint Paul de Vence. He passed away on November 3, 2012.

PAST EXHIBITIONS (SELECTION)

• 2005: Nahan Galleries, New York
• 2013: TOBIASSE INTIMATE/ ULTIMATE Citadel Museum, Villefranche-sur-Mer
• 2015: "Portraits of Women" Espace Bonnard, Le Cannet
• 2017: "Lights of Hope", Magnelli Museum, Vallauris
• 2018: TOBIASSE at VASCOEUIL, Château de Vascoeuil, Vascoeuil
• 2021: From Line to Material, Les Arcades and Pré au Pêcheurs, Antibes