Robert Lynn Batts Tobin; Nationally Known Patron of the Arts, Collector

Robert Lynn Batts Tobin, 66, nationally known art collector and patron of the arts. Born in San Antonio, he was the son of Earl Gardiner Tobin, a World War I pilot who went on to found an aerial mapping company. The firm, which became known worldwide for its pioneering mapping techniques using aerial photography, was the only one of its kind through much of the 1930s and ‘40s. When Earl Tobin died in a plane crash in the early 1950s, Robert, then 19 and a sophomore at the University of Texas, took over the firm. He led it to unprecedented growth before selling it in 1998. At the age of 20, Tobin held the post of president of the Children’s Service Bureau in San Antonio and was a staunch supporter of serving the needs of the city’s poor. He was an inveterate collector with tastes that included opera, stage design, theater, art, architecture and books. His vast collection of theater designs, which he contributed last year to the McNay Art Museum in San Antonio, included two- and three-dimensional costume and set designs and the original Broadway production designs from “My Fair Lady,” “South Pacific” and “West Side Story.” Tobin’s interest in opera led him to become a benefactor of the Metropolitan and Santa Fe operas. In 1995, he donated $1 million to the capital fund to renovate the Santa Fe Opera’s amphitheater and grounds. “More important was the courage he showed,” said John Crosby, general director of that organization. “If we wanted to undertake some experimental opera, he was the first to get behind . . . it and give it a push.” On Wednesday in San Antonio from complications of cancer and respiratory failure.