(1888PressRelease)
November 14, 2008 - New York, NY - "The Battle at The Alamo", a well-known oil painting by the famous late historical illustrator Alton S. Tobey (1914-2005), created for the 12-volume history book series "The Golden Books History of The United States" has been incorporated into a major diorama, completed this month by the well known collector of toy soldiers and diorama maker Tom Munson, of Chagrin Falls, Ohio. The original 1963 painting, an oil on canvas measuring 18 x 24 inches is slated to be auctioned by William A. Jenack of Chester NY in a sale to be held on November 23rd, 2008. More information on the diorama and on the auction can be found on the Alton Tobey web site's home page at www.altontobey.org and on the William Jenack web site at http://www.jenack.com/searchresults.aspx?search=Tobey.
The completed Munson diorama contains over 248 figures and a detailed replica of the Alamo Chapel where the 1836 battle took place. The diorama took more than three years to create, and is described by Munson himself, in a letter to the Tobey Collection as being ". . . my best work!. . .The crowning part of it all has been the use of Alton Tobey's incredible Alamo image."
Many of Tobey's paintings are already in museums, including The Smithsonian American Art Museum, The National Portrait Gallery, The National Museum of American Illustration, The Wadsworth Atheneum and others. Tobey also has murals in famous American memorials, including Smithsonian Institution, The MacArthur Memorial in Virginia, and dozens others. He also was an illustrator for Life magazine and for many other books and periodicals. Since his death in 2005, his web site at www.altontobey.org has grown to include over 700 paintings, with regular updates of news on recent museum acquisitions, licensing and other things pertaining to his life and art.
In the past few years interest in Tobey's paintings has grown significantly, and a number of them have been acquired by museums, including two by The National Museum of American Illustration in Newport, RI; and most recently a portrait of John L. Lewis by the John L. Lewis Memorial Museum of Mining and Labor in Lucas, IA. A 20 page profusely illustrated feature article on Tobey and his work appeared in Illustration magazine in the fall of 2007, and since then, new licenses for the use of his work have been granted to Houghton Mifflin for American Literature, a major textbook on the subject; and by Der Spiegel, the German equivalent of People magazine in Europe. More than a dozen of these items are listed on Tobey's Recent Events web age at www.altontobey.com/RECENTNEWS.html. For the future, funding has been received for the publication of a illustrated book on Tobey's life and work in 2009; and a major retrospective exhibition of his work is also planned for next year in New York City.
Anyone who would like more information on Tobey's paintings -- or museums interested in the acquisition of his work through the Tobey estate's ongoing program of gifting of his paintings to museums -- should contact the Alton Tobey Collection by email to curator ( @ ) altontobey dot org, or call (212) 260-9240.
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