Tobias hotels biography of martin

Artist Martin Tobias forever will be linked with the Mission Inn.

For decades, the Riverside resident has interpreted the city’s beloved landmark through acrylics, mixed media, prints and etchings. In fact, Mission Innkeeper Duane Roberts owns the original embossed lithograph that the artist made.

But Tobias’ images of the iconic hotel represent only a small portion of the artist’s body of work that spans more than six decades of his 82 years: abstracts, nudes, whimsical animal drawings, seascapes, golf courses, fishing ports, Romanian villages and Santa Monica and French street scenes.

“The most important part of my artworks is not the image, but the design of them, the shapes and feel of them,” Tobias said.

A week ago, the Riverside Art Museum opened a retrospective showcasing 60 pieces from Tobias’ collection which are grouped by decade from the 1950s to the present, selling from $300 to $900 apiece.

“Marty has done so much to create a visual identity for our region,” said Drew Oberjuerge, the museum’s executive director. “His pictures of our great architectural sites are well known and have been collected for years.”

At the same time, she’s eager to introduce the uninitiated to Tobias’ extensive range of subjects, techniques and media that reflect many different aspects of his life, travels and interests.

Born and raised in New York City, Tobias knew from kindergarten that he was destined to become an artist and his determination never wavered.

He was accepted to the High School of Music & Art, an elite school in Harlem for gifted students.

A former classmate and friend for 70 years, Charles Bragg, a who’s known for his satirical artwork, said Tobias always was an exceptional artist. “He used to do caricatures of all of us,” said Bragg, who lives in Beverly Hills. “His work is delightful, fun to look at, especially his travel pieces.”

After military service, Tobias received his BFA from the prestigious Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art in Manhattan, continued his art studies and took classes in Greenwich Village with the German-born abstract expressionist painter, Hans Hofmann.

During the next decade, Tobias juggled numerous jobs on Madison Avenue, creating slide shows, sales brochures, logos and book jacket designs and storyboards for commercials. His clients included prominent ad agencies, big companies such as Bristol/Myers and Life, Esquire and Seventeen magazines.

In 1966, he and his wife Carol, their two small children, Mia and Mauri, moved to Riverside where Tobias had landed a job as art director of Bourns, a large manufacturer of electronic components. Compared to the New York grind, the more leisurely Southern California work pace expanded Tobias’ free time to pursue his landscapes and hustle his pieces into galleries.

By 1978, Tobias’ work was selling so well he quit Bourns to become a freelance artist. He doesn’t regret those years in corporate America, never believing that he’d sold out or betrayed his true artistic calling. Instead, he applied the skills he’d learned through marketing, sales and advertising to promote himself and succeed, against all odds, in the brutal world of fine arts.

“You know what they say, that only 1 percent of artists make a living from their art and only 10 percent of them make a great living,” Tobias said with a laugh.

A gentle, soft-spoken man with a ready smile, Tobias and his wife have remained loyal Riverside residents for nearly a half century. Years ago, Tobias switched from abstracts in oils to landscapes in acrylics. “There were so many wonderful scenes in Riverside and the desert,” he said.

His work kept evolving. In 2001 he explored his Jewish Romanian heritage, creating a series of artworks based on visits to his father’s hometown of Iasi and the surrounding Romanian countryside.

Throughout the decades, art dealers, publishers, and distributors have represented Tobias. He said Christie’s of London auctioned complete editions of his work around the world. Corporate clients include large hotel chains, law and insurance offices, banks, restaurants, manufacturers, hospitals, wineries, golf courses and jewelry stores.

Jeri Vaughan, executive director of the Riverside County Regional Medical Center Foundation, said the pieces Tobias donates to their annual auction fundraisers “are our most sought after, favorite items” which always sell for the maximum bid. “He’s an excellent artist and does so much for our local landmarks.”

Contact the writer:llucas@pressenterprise.com, 951-368-9559