Linda

Touby

Linda Touby (American, 1946 - 2021) spent her life and career in New York, New York, and was called the “Abstract Expressionist without the angst.” The expression in Touby’s active, vibrant abstract paintings often related to instrumental music, with color, form, and mark-making all taking shape as a set of motions accompanied by the music the artist chose. In the viewing her works call up the color theory and compositional depth of Hans Hoffman and in fact she is part of that artistic lineage, present as a young person in the New York of the New York School, and later an instructor at the same Art Students League where Hoffmann influenced a generation of abstractionists. And while her work may sit solidly in the realm of late Abstract Expressionism, for the artist the task of freeing herself of its prescriptions was analogous with freeing the work of imagery and reference. She said, “I have been able to free my own individuality from the inspiration I receive from nature, my materials and the whole history of painting. The cave paintings, the Japanese, Giotto, Goya, Titian, Cezanne, as well as the Persians and Picasso have been my teachers. But as Cezanne once said ‘Challenge the influential master.’”