Alton Tobey, 90; Artist, Illustrator Best Known for His Historic Murals
Alton S. Tobey, 90, an artist best known for his historic murals, including two in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, died Jan. 4 at a nursing home in Mamaroneck, N.Y., after a long illness.
The history museum displays his floor-to-ceiling “Inca Trephination” and “Contemporary Cultural Mutilations in Pursuit of Beauty.”
Another of his masterpieces is a six-painting illustration of the life of Gen. Douglas MacArthur for the MacArthur Memorial Building in Norfolk, Va.
A former president of the National Society of Mural Painters, Tobey was an illustrator for Life magazine and created about 350 paintings for the Golden Books History of the United States.
He made portraits of Albert Einstein, Golda Meir, presidents Kennedy and Reagan and the Apollo II astronauts.
Born in Middletown, Conn., Tobey earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in fine art at Yale University and taught there. He also created Modernist paintings, adapting Einstein’s theories on space and time into a signature curvilinear style.
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