Print of the Day!! Fri, Apr. 28, 2023 is by AbEx printmaker Frank Lobdell (1921-2013): Untitled, lithograph, ca. 1951, proof. Rare! $2,500.00.

Print of the Day!! Friday, April 28, 2023 is by California AbEx printmaker Frank Lobdell (1921-2013).

?Another work from our gallery exhibition "Abstract Expressionism in Northern California 1945-1964 Works on paper from the estate of San Francisco collector Marian Schell Skiles."?March 18 through May 29, 2023.

?(Untitled Abstraction) is an original lithograph done around 1951 by California Abex printmaker Frank Lobdell (1921-2013). The image measures 17-1/4 x 12-3/4 inches. This proof impression, it was not formally 'editioned', is pencil signed by the artist in the lower margin. The image was printed by the artist at the California School of Fine Arts, San Francisco, on an ivory wove paper. Our inventory number for this image is MASC139.

This rare Abstract Expressionist - surrealist lithograph by Frank Lobdell (1921-2013) is available from the gallery for $2,500.00.

Contact the gallery with any condition or other questions. Shipping costs will be discussed. California residents will have sales tax added. Out of state residents may be responsible for use tax, depending on state law.

In the years immediately following World War II - in which Lobdell was among the soldiers of the 701st Battalion that discovered the horrific Gardelegen Massacre - Lobdell's work drew from a dark well. Much of his imagery reflected an internal battle, one in which he searched for meaning in art after it had been dashed at the heels of the inhumanity he witnessed. By the early 1950s he was finding inspiration in the lithograph medium. Wrote Timothy Burgard , curator for the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco in 2013: "In the ensuing decades, [Lobdell] worked to resurrect the human figure - which had been physically and psychically traumatized during the war - utilizing a vocabulary of archetypal themes and abstract symbols. ...Tempering an existential sensibility with a transcendent humanism, he forged a unique pictorial language for our modern age."

In this early black and white work, he works to pull forth that abstract surrealist symbolism, without the burden of a narrative. Something nearly like a figure emerges to the left, coming out of the textured shadows to the right. There is intention in the lines that he has laid down, but an overall sense of the artist wanting to simply connect with the medium is what emerges from the stone. An elegant, moody piece from an artist who helped establish the Bay Area as a hub for Abstract Expressionism.

Frank Lobdell, painter, printmaker, and teacher, was born in Kansas City, Missouri on 23 August 1921. During 1938 and 1939, Lobdell attended the Saint Paul School of Fine Art in Minnesota where he was a student of Cameron Booth. Walter Kuhlman was also a student and he and Lobdell became a lifelong-friends. In 1940, the pair viewed the Picasso exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago.

During World War II, Lobdell served in the US Army between 1942 and 1946. After the war, he settled in Sausalito, California and, in 1947, he enrolled in the California School of Fine Arts in San Francisco under the GI Bill. Kuhlman also attended the CSFA and he, Lobdell, Richard Diebenkorn, John Hultberg, George Stillman and James Budd Dixon eventually became known as the Sausalito Six . Five of this group were included in the 1948 exhibition 5 Young Moderns at the Seashore Gallery of Modem Art in Sausalito. Lobdell knew the printer Eric Ledin of Mill Valley and had access to his offset lithography press. He gave the artists paper plates to draw upon and the six of them produced Drawings , the first Abstract Expressionist portfolio in 1948. The series began with seventeen offset printed lithographs but eventually one of the plates broke down and most portfolios contain sixteen prints.

Lobdell left for Paris in 1951 where he enrolled in the Académie de la Grande Chaumière. Walt Kuhlman joined him in Paris and they were included in the exhibition 6eme Salon des Realites Nouvelles at the Petit Palais in 1951. That same year Lobdell returned to San Francisco and established a studio. His distinguished teaching career began in 1957 at the California School of Fine Arts where, according to art historian and critic Thomas Albright , "he was one of the most influential teachers." In 1966, Lobdell was Artist-in-Residence at Stanford University and he joined the Stanford faculty the following year. He was Professor of Art until his retirement from Stanford in 1991.

To purchase this work, see other works, or read a biography for Frank Lobdell use this link to our website: https://www.annexgalleries.com/inventory/artist/1417/Lobdell/Frank

Use this link to view our complete inventory on our website: https://www.annexgalleries.com/inventory?q=