Tobin Collection Deals in Theater
400 Years Worth
Robert L.B. Tobin left a collection of books, etchings, drawings and maquettes spanning four centuries of European and American theater to the McNay Art Museum in San Antonio. A newly expanded museum houses the riches. Right: Eugene Berman was a Russian Jewish painter and set designer, included in the Tobin Collection.Robert L.B. Tobin attended his first opera when he was 7 years old. As a teen, he listened to the Texaco-Metropolitan Opera radio broadcasts while staging scenes with toys in miniature set models he created based on the designs he found in “Opera News.” As an adult, he sat on the boards of the Metropolitan Opera, the Santa Fe Opera, the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Spoleto Festival. He was often seen in Santa Fe, attending the opera in full cape, walking stick and monocle. The man had a legendary passion for opera and theatre and throughout his life, amassed a collection spanning four centuries of European and American theatre that was gifted in 1984 to the McNay Art Museum in his hometown of San Antonio, Texas by he and his mother Margaret Batts Tobin. This past December, the McNay celebrated the re-opening of their recently renovated Tobin Theatre Arts and Brown Galleries. The new facilities doubled to about 3,500 square feet, the dedicated space available to showcase the collection of more than 12,000 works including 2,000 rare books and 150 maquettes.
Robert Tobin, was heir to one of the largest family fortunes in Texas, but at heart he wanted to be a theatre designer. Throughout his academic years and early adulthood, he collected etchings, drawings and books celebrating his passion. His collection is among the finest of its kind in an American art museum and is noted for its holdings of works by painters who also designed for the stage including Henry Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Natalia Gontcharova and Giorgio de Chirico. What makes the collection special is that it is housed in an art museum and not an academic institution or library and is therefore, open and accessible to the public.
The current exhibition features some 136 objects providing an historic retrospective of theatre from Ancient Greece through the 20th Century without being pedantic.
“What fascinates me most as an art historian, are the way the different art forms are moving in parallel directions at any given time,” said Dr. Jody Blake, the curator of the collection. Her doctoral degree is in 19th and 20th Century American Art History, but she comes from a theatre going family and is intrigued by the intersection between the visual and performing arts. A curiosity that ideally suits her to her current job.
For Blake there is a social difference between the performing and visual arts. The performing arts typically happen in a group setting, with others. The visual arts are highly individualistic. The creation and viewing of a work of visual art is typically solitary. The performing arts inherently involve interaction.
“I often find throughout 20th Century art an emphasis on discussion about visual arts has always been formalist,” Blake said citing Clive Bell and Clement Greenburg as examples. “The language used is hermetic, closed, filled with formal terms separate from life.”
In contrast, Blake suggests that critics react in a more visceral, political and direct way to what they see on the stage. “The Performing arts can create an uproar as they did in Prague to actors dancing on a stage or be titillating as they were when both men and women swooned over Najinski,” she said. “The Tobin collection documents an ephemeral art form. But the museum setting recontextualizes the drawings and designs. Because it is in an art museum viewers can make the connection between stage and studio.”
But she’s also clear to point out that visitors to the museum often are not familiar with the artistic context, designer or artist. They are more familiar with Shakespeare or Sondheim, producers, musicians, performers and do not care about the visual arts canon or it’s linear trajectory.
Highlights from the collection currently on display include a festival book from the Court of Louis XIV for a staging of Lodovico Ariosto’s tale of a wayward knight. Actual costumes on loan to accompany the design bibles from Grace Costumes in New York, so visitors can view the sketch and the final version. Jean Cocteau masks with popping eyes. Drawings for Vaslav Nijinsky’s swoon inducing performance in the ballet “Scheherazade.”
Robert Perdziola
Costume design for Laura Aikin as Zerbinetta in Ariadne auf Naxos, 1997
Gouache and graphite on paper
Gift of Robert L. B. Tobin. (c) Robert Perdziola
The collection endowment allows for continuing acquisition and Blake has added maquettes from John Adam’s “Nixon in China” originally staged for the Houston Grand Opera and Robert Indiana’s designs for “The Mother of Us All” an opera by Virgil Thomson to a libretto by Gertrude Stein. The collection continues to be interested in contemporary stage and theatre design as an extension of Robert’s vision and passion. Tobin also created the Tobin Theatre Arts Fund which awards the Robert L.B. Tobin Award for Lifetime Achievement in Theatrical Design. The award was first presented in 2004 to acclaimed set and costume designer Tony Walton and has since been presented to Robert O'Hearn (2005), Franco Zeffirelli (2006), Santo Loquasto (2007), John Conklin (2008) and Bob Crowley (2009).
Blake also noted that the collection is loaned internationally for exhibitions and is a regular contributor to the Prague Quadrennial. They also offer a ten month paid internship for an individual with a Masters Degree in an appropriate field, which can be as diverse as art history, costume design, scene design or Shakespearian studies.
Robert L.B. Tobin died April 29, 2000 in San Antonio. He was only 66. But his spirit and commitment to theatre and opera lives on through his generosity, passion and support. According to curator Blake, one of the most important aspects of the Tobin Collection at the McNay is that it is personal and quirky—not strictly academic. Perhaps that’s what makes it so much fun for viewers.
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