John Dobbs (1931-2011) American, Abstract Figural Oil on Canvas. Signed bottom left. Original gallery tag on back of canvas with name, medium, size, price, and title: "The Guardian of the Absolute." Overall: 21 3/4 X 18 in. Sight: 15 3/4 X 12 1/4 in. #3890 . John Barnes Dobbs was born in 1931 in Nutley, New Jersey. He grew up in a politically engaged family of artists, musicians, and poets. At 18, after graduating from high school, Dobbs hoisted a duffle bag onto his shoulder and hitchhiked cross-country. He worked at a variety of odd jobs before returning to the East Coast to study painting with Ben Shahn, Gregorio Prestopino and Jack Levine, who became his mentor and life-long friend. Although he studied with several painters during his twenties, he always referred to himself as a “self-taught” artist. In 1952 Dobbs was drafted into the Army and stationed in Germany. He brought along a sketchbook, which he filled with drawings of soldiers and post-war German life, later published in 1955 as a chapbook called “Drawings of a Draftee.” After returning to the United States Dobbs married French-Algerian literary scholar Anne Baudement and had his first solo show at the Grippi Gallery in New York in 1959. Four years later painter Raphael Soyer included Dobbs with eight other figurative artists including Edward Hopper, Leonard Baskin, and Jack Levine in his large group portrait, Homage to Thomas Eakins. Although he and Dobbs became close friends and artistic compatriots, their work developed along different directions, and Dobbs, who worked from memory and imagination, employing both literal and symbolic imagery to invoke America’s collective preoccupations and dreams, becoming a figurative painter who balked at the prevailing Abstract Expressionism in favor of Realism and Conceptual Art. His figures were often embedded in an alienating, modern landscape of interwoven cities and suburbs. Dobbs had many solo shows at galleries, universities, and museums, including the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Butler Institute of American Art in Ohio, and the Salon Populiste in Paris. His paintings are part of the permanent collections of the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, D.C., the Montclair Art Museum in New Jersey, and the Springfield Museum of Art in Massachusetts. From 1972 to 1996, he was a Professor of Art at John Jay College, City University of New York. He was a member of the National Academy, to which he was elected in 1976. Dobbs died at his home in Greenwich Village on August 9th, 2011.
"Untitled" Oil on canvas. Gentleman being undressed with nude woman and servants. Signed. Framed Dimensions 37" x 43" STERLING ASSOCIATES STRIVES TO PROVIDE ACCURATE, OBJECTIVE, & FAIR INFORMATION ON ALL LOTS. WE WILL BE HAPPY TO ANSWER ANY QUESTIONS AND PROVIDE ADDITIONAL PHOTOS. WE ADVISE THAT YOU, OR SOMEONE ON YOUR BEHALF, INSPECT ANY ITEM(S) AND COME TO YOUR OWN CONCLUSIONS BEFORE BIDDING. ALL SALES ARE FINAL. PLEASE SEE TERMS & CONDITIONS.
American, 1931-2011 Eastern Shore Signed J Dobbs (lr) Oil on canvas 50 x 44 inches (127 x 112 cm) Provenance: ACA Galleries, New York Impression of stretcher bars visible along bottom edge.
John Barnes Dobbs (American, 1931-2011), "Motel Window", signed "J.B. Dobbs" at lower right, gallery label verso, 26"h x 24"w (canvas), 27"h x 25"w (frame)
John Barnes Dobbs American, 1931-2011 Eastern Shore Signed J Dobbs (lr) Oil on canvas 50 x 44 inches (127 x 112 cm) Provenance: ACA Galleries, New York C
John Dobbs New York, New Jersey, (1931 - 2011) Carry Me oil on canvas signed lower left. Provenance: ACA Galleries, NYC Dent to canvas with 3/8" loss to paint upper right near edge in background. Biography from the Archives of askART: The following is a press release obituary for the artist who died August 9, 2011. The author and person who submitted the text is Mona Molarsky. John Barnes Dobbs, a determinedly figurative painter who launched his career in the 1950s against the prevailing winds of Abstract Expressionism, lived to see a time when Realism would coexist with Abstraction, Minimalism, Conceptual Art and a variety of other artistic movements. On August 9 Dobbs died at his home in New York's Greenwich Village at the age of 80. During a career that spanned more than half a century, Dobbs painted his own dusky vision of humanity: figures embedded—more often than not—in an alienating, modern landscape of city and suburb. The people on his canvases are often seen in the distance or from behind, as if departing. They ride up escalators, wait on subway platforms or pass through turnstiles. We glimpse their silhouettes through plate glass windows or in the glare of sun on concrete. In his final works, Dobbs' figures appear against flat backgrounds, iconic as the images on tarot cards: acrobats, boxers and contortionists, struggling against the physics of their own bodies and that of the universe. Dobbs had many solo shows at galleries, universities and museums. His work was exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Butler Institute of American Art in Ohio, and the Salon Populiste in Paris. Dobbs' paintings are part of the permanent collections of the Hirshhorn Museum, Washington, DC; the Montclair Art Museum, Montclair, NJ; the Neuberger Museum, Purchase, NY; the Canton Museum of Art, Canton, OH and the Springfield Museum of Art, Springfield, MA. From 1972 to 1996, he was a Professor of Art at John Jay College, City University of New York. He was a member of the National Academy, to which he was elected in 1976. Born in 1931 in a small house by the Lackawanna Railroad in Nutley, New Jersey, where his grandfather had once worked as a railway express clerk, Dobbs grew up in a politically engaged family of artists, musicians and poets. Yet he credited the shining rails that ran past their little house with giving him his first lesson in one-point perspective. Although he studied with several painters during his twenties, he always referred to himself as a "self-taught" artist. At 18, after graduating from high school, Dobbs hoisted a duffle bag onto his shoulder and hitchhiked cross-country. He worked at a variety of odd jobs before returning to the East Coast to study painting with Ben Shahn, Gregorio Prestopino and Jack Levine, who became his mentor and life-long friend. In 1952 Dobbs was drafted into the Army and stationed in Germany. He brought along a sketchbook, which he filled with drawings of soldiers and post-war German life, later published in a chapbook, "Drawings of a Draftee" (1955). After returning to the United States, Dobbs married French-Algerian literary scholar Anne Baudement and had his first one-man show at the Grippi Gallery in New York in 1959. Four years later, painter Raphael Soyer included Dobbs—along with Edward Hopper, Leonard Baskin, Jack Levine and eight other figurative artists—in his large group portrait, Homage to Thomas Eakins. Soyer's canvas was a cri de coeur for 20th century American Realist painting. But, although he and Dobbs became close friends and artistic compatriots, their work developed along different directions. While Soyer devoted himself to painting from life, Dobbs worked from memory and imagination, employing both literal and symbolic imagery to invoke America's collective preoccupations and dreams. Those dreams, as Dobbs conceived them, can sometimes be terrifying. In Deodand #2, (1969), painted by Dobbs during the height of the protests against the war in Vietnam, a large revolver points straight at the viewer. Staring down the barrel of the gun is the shadowy face of a helmeted policeman. With its oversized revolver, gripped in huge hands, the work confronts us more directly and aggressively than news footage ever could. The artist is willing to let us squirm before this hyper-realistic nightmare of the American history from which we are still trying to awake. "I'm not afraid to say I've made paintings that can be hard to live with," Dobbs wrote near the end of his life, responding to often-heard comments that his work is both beautiful and disturbing. Certainly we can trace Dobbs' artistic lineage from Goya through George Grosz, those break-and-enter artists who brought fury into the drawing room and have never been entirely forgiven. As with those earlier, socially conscious painters, one senses that the demons that pursued Dobbs were as much personal as political. That's one reason the sloppy labels "Realist" and "Social Realist" that have dogged him and his circle for decades don't shed much light on the paintings. In the unforgettable self-portrait White Mask (1999), Dobbs' haunting gray eyes stare out of his long, bearded face. They are cool, appraising and unflinching. But instead of a cap on top of his balding head, the artist wears an African totem. It's a large wooden mask, painted white, the color of death. And its coal-black eyes stare off into an otherworldly, steel-blue distance. "I am your doppelgänger," the ghostly second head seems to say, "and I come from a world that's truer, deeper and more real." Dobbs is survived by his wife Anne, sons Michel and Nicolas, and his sister Louise DeCormier and her family. - By Mona Molarsky
John Barnes Dobbs New York, New Jersey, (1931 - 2011) "New Jersey Landscape" with railroad tunnel oil on canvas signed lower right. Provenance: ACA Galleries, NYC Biography from the Archives of askART: The following is a press release obituary for the artist who died August 9, 2011. The author and person who submitted the text is Mona Molarsky. John Barnes Dobbs, a determinedly figurative painter who launched his career in the 1950s against the prevailing winds of Abstract Expressionism, lived to see a time when Realism would coexist with Abstraction, Minimalism, Conceptual Art and a variety of other artistic movements. On August 9 Dobbs died at his home in New York's Greenwich Village at the age of 80. During a career that spanned more than half a century, Dobbs painted his own dusky vision of humanity: figures embedded—more often than not—in an alienating, modern landscape of city and suburb. The people on his canvases are often seen in the distance or from behind, as if departing. They ride up escalators, wait on subway platforms or pass through turnstiles. We glimpse their silhouettes through plate glass windows or in the glare of sun on concrete. In his final works, Dobbs' figures appear against flat backgrounds, iconic as the images on tarot cards: acrobats, boxers and contortionists, struggling against the physics of their own bodies and that of the universe. Dobbs had many solo shows at galleries, universities and museums. His work was exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Butler Institute of American Art in Ohio, and the Salon Populiste in Paris. Dobbs' paintings are part of the permanent collections of the Hirshhorn Museum, Washington, DC; the Montclair Art Museum, Montclair, NJ; the Neuberger Museum, Purchase, NY; the Canton Museum of Art, Canton, OH and the Springfield Museum of Art, Springfield, MA. From 1972 to 1996, he was a Professor of Art at John Jay College, City University of New York. He was a member of the National Academy, to which he was elected in 1976. Born in 1931 in a small house by the Lackawanna Railroad in Nutley, New Jersey, where his grandfather had once worked as a railway express clerk, Dobbs grew up in a politically engaged family of artists, musicians and poets. Yet he credited the shining rails that ran past their little house with giving him his first lesson in one-point perspective. Although he studied with several painters during his twenties, he always referred to himself as a "self-taught" artist. At 18, after graduating from high school, Dobbs hoisted a duffle bag onto his shoulder and hitchhiked cross-country. He worked at a variety of odd jobs before returning to the East Coast to study painting with Ben Shahn, Gregorio Prestopino and Jack Levine, who became his mentor and life-long friend. In 1952 Dobbs was drafted into the Army and stationed in Germany. He brought along a sketchbook, which he filled with drawings of soldiers and post-war German life, later published in a chapbook, "Drawings of a Draftee" (1955). After returning to the United States, Dobbs married French-Algerian literary scholar Anne Baudement and had his first one-man show at the Grippi Gallery in New York in 1959. Four years later, painter Raphael Soyer included Dobbs—along with Edward Hopper, Leonard Baskin, Jack Levine and eight other figurative artists—in his large group portrait, Homage to Thomas Eakins. Soyer's canvas was a cri de coeur for 20th century American Realist painting. But, although he and Dobbs became close friends and artistic compatriots, their work developed along different directions. While Soyer devoted himself to painting from life, Dobbs worked from memory and imagination, employing both literal and symbolic imagery to invoke America's collective preoccupations and dreams. Those dreams, as Dobbs conceived them, can sometimes be terrifying. In Deodand #2, (1969), painted by Dobbs during the height of the protests against the war in Vietnam, a large revolver points straight at the viewer. Staring down the barrel of the gun is the shadowy face of a helmeted policeman. With its oversized revolver, gripped in huge hands, the work confronts us more directly and aggressively than news footage ever could. The artist is willing to let us squirm before this hyper-realistic nightmare of the American history from which we are still trying to awake. "I'm not afraid to say I've made paintings that can be hard to live with," Dobbs wrote near the end of his life, responding to often-heard comments that his work is both beautiful and disturbing. Certainly we can trace Dobbs' artistic lineage from Goya through George Grosz, those break-and-enter artists who brought fury into the drawing room and have never been entirely forgiven. As with those earlier, socially conscious painters, one senses that the demons that pursued Dobbs were as much personal as political. That's one reason the sloppy labels "Realist" and "Social Realist" that have dogged him and his circle for decades don't shed much light on the paintings. In the unforgettable self-portrait White Mask (1999), Dobbs' haunting gray eyes stare out of his long, bearded face. They are cool, appraising and unflinching. But instead of a cap on top of his balding head, the artist wears an African totem. It's a large wooden mask, painted white, the color of death. And its coal-black eyes stare off into an otherworldly, steel-blue distance. "I am your doppelgänger," the ghostly second head seems to say, "and I come from a world that's truer, deeper and more real." Dobbs is survived by his wife Anne, sons Michel and Nicolas, and his sister Louise DeCormier and her family. - By Mona Molarsky
Oil on canvas portrait of a bearded man (self-portrait), by John Barnes Dobbs (b. 1931), signed lower left, in a carved and composition gilt and painted frame. [21" H x 18" W; Frame: 31" H x 27" W].
John Barnes Dobbs (American, 1931-2011) watercolor on paper depicting a woman in bikini walking her dog. Pencil signed lower right and dated 1960. Measures 9" x 6" + 3" mat & frame.
John Barnes Dobbs (American, 1931-2011) watercolor on paper depicting a woman in bikini walking her dog. Pencil signed lower right and dated 1960. Measures 9" x 6" + 3" mat & frame.
John Barnes Dobbs (American, 1931-2011) ink drawing on paper depicting a torture scene with prisoner. Hand signed and dated lower left. Measures 13 1/4" (33.5cm) x 9 3/4" (25cm) + 3 1/4" (8.2cm) mat & frame.
John Barnes Dobbs (American, 1931-2011) ink drawing on paper depicting a figural scene with prisoner. Hand signed and dated lower left. Measures 13 1/4" (33.5cm) x 9 3/4" (25cm) + 3 1/4" (8.2cm) mat & frame.
John Barnes Dobbs (American, 1931-2011) ink drawing on paper depicting a figural scene with prisoner. Hand signed and dated lower left. Measures 13 1/4" (33.5cm) x 9 3/4" (25cm) + 3 1/4" (8.2cm) mat & frame.
John Barnes Dobbs (American, 1931-2011) ink and wash drawing on paper depicting a standing female figure. Signed lower right and dated 1960. Measures 13 3/4" (35cm) x 10 1/4" (26cm).
John Barnes Dobbs (American, 1931 - 2011) watercolor paintings and ink drawings depicting various figures. Each signed and dated 60, 63 and 64. Largest measures 14" (35.5cm) x 9 1/2" (24cm) + 3" (7.5cm) frame.
John Barnes Dobbs (American (New York), 1931 - 2011), "Dixieland Rideout" (1st Study), oil on board, signed lower right "JB Dobbs". A figurative painting depicting a dusky vision of figures; yellow figure with arms up on white horse, gentleman in a suit and man moving forward. Provenance: Exhibited at ACA Galleries, NY (label on verso). Framed approximately 19.25" x 16.25". Sight approximately 13.25" x 10.25".
"Two Standing Female Nudes". Signed l/l. Verso bears artist's name on stretcher and dated 1961. Oil on Canvas. Measuring 39 1/2" by 28 1/2". Carved frame. (Cond: surface dirty, otherwise good)
Two pen and ink drawings. Both untitled. Both signed l/l. One dated ’02. The other dated ’03. Measuring 10” by 13” and 13” by 10”. Framed under Plexiglas. (Cond: some toning and foxing)
(American, 1931-2011). Pen and ink with watercolor on paper, signed and dated "J.B. Dobbs, '55" lr, inscribed "52 St.-The Trumpet Vomits-always a show on," ll, sight size: 16 1/4 x 19 1/4 in., framed
Two pen and ink drawings. Both untitled. Both signed l/l. One dated ’02. The other dated ’03. Measuring 10” by 13” and 13” by 10”. Framed under Plexiglas. (Cond: some toning and foxing)
Blind Man Walking. Charcoal and wash on paper, 1965. Signed, dated, and dedicated (l.r.). Sight size 14 x 9 inches. Matted and framed. Notice to bidders: Condition reports and additional photographs are provided by request as a courtesy to our clients, as such any condition report is only an opinion and should not be treated as a statement of fact. The absence of a condition report does not imply that the lot is in perfect condition or completely free of defects, imperfections, restoration, wear and tear, or the effects of aging. Capo Auction shall have no responsibility for any error or omission, additionally all lots are sold 'As Is' and in accordance with the conditions of sale.
Suburban scene. Oil on canvas. Signed (l.l.). Canvas size 56 1/2 x 28 1/2 inches. Framed. Notice to bidders: Condition reports and additional photographs are provided by request as a courtesy to our clients, as such any condition report is only an opinion and should not be treated as a statement of fact. The absence of a condition report does not imply that the lot is in perfect condition or completely free of defects, imperfections, restoration, wear and tear, or the effects of aging. Capo Auction shall have no responsibility for any error or omission, additionally all lots are sold 'As Is' and in accordance with the conditions of sale.
Self Portrait at 36. Oil on canvas, 1967. Signed, titled and dated (verso). Canvas size 22 1/2 x 18 1/2 inches. Framed. Notice to bidders: Condition reports and additional photographs are provided by request as a courtesy to our clients, as such any condition report is only an opinion and should not be treated as a statement of fact. The absence of a condition report does not imply that the lot is in perfect condition or completely free of defects, imperfections, restoration, wear and tear, or the effects of aging. Capo Auction shall have no responsibility for any error or omission, additionally all lots are sold 'As Is' and in accordance with the conditions of sale.
John Barnes Dobbs American-New York (born1931- ) Watercolor Wash "Untitled" Signed Lower Center Right. Good to Very Good Condition. Measures 26 Inches by 15-1/4 Inches, Frame Measures 28-3/4 Inches by 17-3/4 Inches. Shipping $110.00
JOHN DOBBS (American, b. 1931) DIVIDED HIGHWAY mixed media collage on masonite; signed J.b. Dobbs, l.c.; bears ACA Galleries, New York label on verso; 10 x 24 inches Provenance: The Estate of Beatrice A. Noble, Sheffield, Massachusetts
John Barnes Dobbs American-New York (born1931- ) Oil on Canvas "Untitled" Circa 1961-1962. Signed en Verso and Dated. Good to Very Good Condition. Measures 32 Inches by 39-1/2 Inches, Frame Measures 34 Inches by 41-1/2 Inches. This Lot is Being Sold to Benefit The Boca Raton Museum of Art, Boca Raton, Florida, a Not for Profit Organization, to further Enhance their Acquisitions Fund. We Will Not Ship This Item In-House Because in our Opinion it needs to be Professionally Crated. We Would be Happy to Recommend a List of Gallery Approved Vendors on Request
JOHN DOBBS (American, b. 1931) DIVIDED HIGHWAY mixed media collage on masonite; signed J.B. Dobbs, l.c.; bears ACA Galleries, New York label on verso; 10 x 24 inches Provenance: The Estate of Beatrice A. Noble, Sheffield, Massachusetts
JOHN DOBBS (American, b. 1931) STUDY FOR MOTEL ROOM oil on canvas; signed J. B. Dobbs, l.r.; bears ACA Galleries, New York label on verso; 21 1/4 x 19 inches Provenance: The Estate of Beatrice A. Noble, Sheffield, Massachusetts
John Barnes Dobbs (American, b. 1931) Faces Signed and dated "John Dobbs 76" l.l. Mixed media on board, 10 3/4 x 10 1/2 in. (27.3 x 26.6 cm), framed. Condition: Subtle toning, not examined out of frame. Provenance: From the artist to the present owner.
