Introspective, dark and serious, Frank Lobdell's abstract paintings mirrored his own rich interior life. As a combat officer in the U.S. Army, he witnessed the atrocities of World War II firsthand. Upon his return from duty, Lobdell moved to California to pursue his early love of painting. In 1966, a year after being invited to Stanford as a visiting artist, Lobdell was named professor of art.
Frank Irving Lobdell, professor emeritus, died December 14 in Palo Alto of cardiopulmonary arrest. He was 92.
After the war, Lobdell studied on the GI Bill, enrolling at the California School of Fine Arts—now the San Francisco Art Institute. CSFA's faculty at the time included industry renegades and expressionists Clyfford Still and Mark Rothko. Like many of his contemporaries, Lobdell focused much of his work on translating the angst and exuberance of the postwar period into deeply affecting works of abstract art. Early works from the 1940s and 1950s reflect a fascination with darker palettes and subject matter.
He spent the 1960s as part of a figure drawing collective that included Nathan Oliveira, Richard Diebenkorn and Elmer Bischoff, key faces of the Bay Area Figurative movement. Two of his paintings from that era, Fall 1964 and Black Edge III, feature prominently in Stanford's Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts. The mounted images display "bones, legs, bellies and eyeballs flying around the canvas" and suggest "the body floating out in the universe unmoored and untethered" according to Hilarie Faberman, curator of modern and contemporary art at the Cantor.
Outside of his prized studio hours, Lobdell enjoyed the company of his students, strongly encouraging them to develop their own sense of creativity. According to his wife, Jinx, "He dedicated his life to his work because of his love of painting and the capacity for being moved by it." He taught at Stanford for more than 20 years before retiring in 1991.
Lobdell's works have been featured in museum collections across the United States, including the Smithsonian Institution, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, National Gallery of Art and Whitney Museum of American Art. A decorated artist, he received awards ranging from a Pew Foundation Grant to the Nealie Sullivan Award and two Academy Purchase Awards from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. In 2003, his work became the subject of a tribute-cum-retrospective, Frank Lobdell: The Art of Making and Meaning, at the California Palace of the Legion of Honor.
Lobdell is survived by his wife, Virginia "Jinx" Rowan Lobdell; sons, Frank and Judson, '85; one granddaughter; and two sisters.
Naomi Elias is a student in the master's program in journalism.
