Robert Lobe
New York-based sculptor Robert Lobe was raised in Cleveland, OH and was educated at Oberlin College and Hunter College. Inspired by the shapes, materials, and textures found almost specifically in the woods, he depicts rocks and trees in shimmering, hollow forms using heat-treated, hammered aluminum. The signature process Lobe uses is an adaptation of repoussé, an ancient technique in which metal is hammered, usually from the inside, to create designs or shapes.
Lobe encases trees and rocks in sheets of aluminum, using mallets and a pneumatic air compressor to stretch and tighten the metal. Through the force of repetitive blows from the hammers, Lobe alters the structure of the aluminum until it conforms snugly to the texture of the rock or tree, exposing its interior volume. The new surface replicates and abstracts the contours and thus enhances the play of light and shadow on the aluminum skin.
In October 2008, Lux installed a sculpture by Lobe on the grounds of its five-acre site. Mother Maple portrays the trunk of a tree, a branch, and a large boulder. Created by Lobe in 1988, it measures an impressive 120” high by 123” wide by 108” deep and weighs 500 pounds. Complementing Bucket with Abstraction, a smaller sculpture by Lobe in the Lux library, Mother Maple was moved into place near the top of Lux’s granite trail and is on loan to the Institute through October 17, 2010.
Lobe’s work has been commissioned and exhibited in galleries and museums across the country, including the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and Whitney Museum of American Art, both in New York City; National Gallery, Washington, D.C.; Cleveland Museum of Art, OH; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX; and Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN.
He has received a variety of awards and prizes including two National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships, a Creative Artists Public Service Award, an Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation Grant, and a Pollack-Krasner Foundation Award.
For more information, please visit the artist's website at www.robertlobe.com.
- 2006
- Robert Lobe Sculpture, Douglas Udell Gallery, Vancouver, Canada
- The Landscape Transformed: The Sculpture Of Robert Lobe, Montalvo Gallery, Montalvo Arts Center, Saratoga, CA
- 2005
- Ne Cede Malis, Stags’ Leap Winery Salon Series, Napa, CA
- 2004
- Four Trees, Montclair Art Museum, Montclair, NJ
- 2003
- Senior & Shopmaker Gallery, New York, NY
- Works on Paper and a Sculpture, Texas Gallery, Houston, TX
- 2002
- A Clearing In The Woods, The Katonah Museum, Katonah, NY
- 2001
- Nina Freudenheim Gallery, Buffalo, NY
- 2000
- Senior & Shopmaker Gallery, New York, NY
- 1997
- Grounds for Sculpture, Hamilton, NJ
- Robert Lobe / Sculpture on the Grounds, Southeast Center for Contemporary Art, Winston-Salem, NC
- 1996
- Natural Resources, Greater Reston Arts Center, Reston, VA
- 1995
- The Palm at the End of the Parking Lot, Laumeier Sculpture Park, St. Louis, MO
- 1992
- LandMindscape, City Gallery of Contemporary Art, Raleigh, NC
- Allene Lapidis Gallery, Sante Fe, NM
- Blum Helman Warehouse, New York, NY
- 1991
- Blum Helman Warehouse, New York, NY
- The Artist’s Sculpture—In The Woods of New Jersey, Department of Environmental Protection, Trenton, NJ
- Beth Urdang Fine Art, Boston, MA
- 1990
- Robert Lobe, The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
- 2007
- Winter Art in Public Places, City of Winter Park, FL
- El Paseo Outdoor Sculpture Exhibition, Palm Desert, CA
- 2006
- Tree Lines, Abington Art Center, Abington, PA
- El Bosque/The Forest, Federico Silva Museum, San Luis Patosi, Mexico (traveled to Mexico City; Santa Fe, NM; San Francisco and Los Angeles, CA)
- 2005
- Drawn to Cleveland, Museum of Contemporary Art, Cleveland, OH
- 2004
- 179 Annual: An Invitational Exhibition of Contemporary American Art, National Academy of Design, New York, NY
- Blixen- Robert Lobe with Zac Posen, Fashion Week at Bryant Park, New York, NY
- 2003
- Outdoor Sculpture Invitational, Bristol Myers Squibb, New Brunswick, NJ
- 2002
- Tenth Anniversary Invitational, Grounds For Sculpture, Hamilton, NJ
- Summer Exhibition, Senior and Shopmaker Gallery, New York, NY
- 2001
- Sensing the Forest, Wave Hill, Bronx, NY
- Summer Exhibition, Senior and Shopmaker Gallery, New York, NY
- 2000
- 2000 New Jersey Fine Arts Annual: Into The Millennium, The Newark Museum, Newark, NJ
- 1999
- As Far As the Eye Can See, Atlanta College of Art, Atlanta, GA
- Six Degrees Of Seduction, Central Fine Arts, New York, NY
- 1998
- Spring Exhibition, Grounds for Sculpture, Hamilton, NJ
- Escape Velocity, Socrates Sculpture Park, Long Island City, NY
- The Edward R. Broida Collection, Orlando Museum of Art, Orlando, FL
- Inaugural Exhibition, The Fields Sculpture Park, Art/Omi, Ghent, NY
- Off The Wall: Eight Contemporary American Sculptors, Asheville Art Museum, Asheville, NC (traveled to University of Alabama at Birmingham Visual Arts Gallery)
- 1997
- Aedicules, Art/Omi, Ghent, NY
- Multiple Identity: Amerikanische Kunst 1975-1995 aus dem Whitney Museum of American Art, Kunstmuseum Bonn, Bonn, Germany
- 1996
- Twentieth Century American Sculpture at the White House: Northeast Region, First Lady’s Garden, The White House, Washington, D.C.
- Contemporary Sculpture at Chesterwood, 1996, Chesterwood, Stockbridge, MA
- Sculpture New Jersey, The Art Gallery, Ramapo College, Mahwah, NJ
- Art at the End of the 20th Century: Selections from the Whitney Museum of American Art, National Gallery, Alexander Soutzos Museum, Athens, Greece
- 1995
- Revisiting Landscape, California Center For The Arts, Escondido, CA
- Inaugural Exhibition: Margaret Woodson Fisher Sculpture Gallery, Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum, Wausau, WI
- Grounds For Sculpture, Hamilton, NJ
- Inspiration, Trans Hudson Gallery, Jersey City, NJ
- 1994
- Landscape Not Landscape, Gallery Camino Real, Boca Raton, FL
- Grounds For Sculpture, Hamilton, NJ
- Prints from Solo Impressions, The College of Wooster Art Museum, Wooster, OH
- 1993
- Dialogue with Nature: Nine Contemporary Sculptors, The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.
- A Private View: Artists’ Photographs, Blum Helman Gallery, New York, NY
- Storm King Art Center, Mountainville, NY
- Grounds For Sculpture, Hamilton, NJ
- Drawings by Sculptors, Nancy Drysdale Gallery, Washington, D.C.
- Sex Money Politics, Nancy Drysdale Gallery, Washington, D.C.
- Sculpture/Prints, Bernard Toale Gallery, Boston, MA
- 1992
- Issues in Sculpture, 1960 -1990, Marian Locks Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
- Contemporary Wood Sculpture, Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY
- Ellen H. Johnson Collection: The Living Object, Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College, Oberlin, OH
- De Cordova Museum and Sculpture Park, Lincoln, MA
- 1991
- Five Artists Reclaim Nature, Neuberger Museum, Purchase, NY
- Sticks and Stones and Artists work with Nature, Katonah Museum of Art, Katonah, NY
- Acquisitions of the 80s, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY
- 1990
- Robert Lobe, Guiseppe Penone, Hamish Fulton, Blum Helman Gallery, New York, NY
- The Land is Our Land, Zoe Gallery, Boston, MA
- A Natural Order, The Hudson River Museum, Yonkers, NY