Untitled

Frank Lobdell

In June and July of 1966 Frank Lobdell did a series of 32 lithographs, both color and black and white, at Tamarind Lithography Workshop in Los Angeles. Working at his usual intense pace he would experiment with the stones, often reworking the images and combining different stones to create a new image.

Lobdell continued throughout his career to return to the black and white abstracted image he began working with after seeing a Picasso exhibition that included "Guernica" in 1940, which affected his whole approach to art.

Lobdell's chaotic, biomorphic shapes anticipate the flotsam and jetsam that currently exists in the earth's seas, space and biologics.

One of the early San Francisco Bay Area Abstract Expressionists Frank Lobdell moved between painting and printmaking throughout his whole career. As part of the Sausalito 6 his lithographs were included in the 1948 "Drawings" portfolio, the first Abstract Expressionist portfolio done in the U.S.

For a good description of Lobdell's background read David Acton's "The Stamp of Impulse: Abstract Expressionist Prints", Worcester Museum, 1981, page 66.