Frank X. Tolbert 2

New Works Space

March 3 – April 21, 2007

Frank Tolbert  is a well known Texas based artist who lives and works in Houston. Tolbert and his wife photographer Ann Stautberg have traveled extensively in Berlin, Paris and most recently China. Frank Tolbert’s work is highly narrative and his earlier work reflects the traditions of the Texas Modernists and especially the work of Otis Dozier under whom he studied.  He also shares some stylistic elements with Latin American Art and the Surrealists.  Tolbert has created a visual language all his own through the recurrent use of certain images such as fish, fowl, flora, and cowboys and his work is often interlaced with ambiguity and humor.  Mr. Tolbert has had several solo exhibitions, numerous group exhibitions and has been collected by many art museums including the Dallas Museum of Art and the For worth Museum of Modern Art.  Tolbert studied at Texas Tech University and North Texas State University. 

Tolbert states, “During the thirty years of my career as an artist I have worked in a narrative style. I work with graphite, oil stick, oil paint, and water colors-almost always on paper.   I consider myself a  'drawer' regardless of the medium. The marks I make are my emotional responses to what is going on around me. My work is about the mundane, the real, the surreal and the absurdities of life on Earth. “