“To me an artist is one who….portrays the spirit of man in whatever condition that spirit may be. He can’t expect too much of him when the rest is negligent of spiritual values such as today….The development of my work has been I feel more subconscious than conscious. I do not work by intellectual deductions. My work is a kind of self-contained contemplation.” –Mark Tobey
“Of all artists of his generation, and of the generation that has followed and revered him, Tobey is the artist whose communication is effected in the most purely visual language, resisting translation into any other.
His painting are not intended to hail us from across the room, but to delight us at close range. Whatever their size, they have the precision, concentration, and intimacy of manuscript illuminations — a kinship that should be apparent in his etchings and lithographs.” — Alex J. Rosenberg