Rebecca Tobey

Rebecca Tobey
"Path Finder" by Rebecca and Gene Tobey
Born	1948 Mason, Texas, USA
Nationality	US citizen
Occupation	Artist of ceramic animal sculptures

Rebecca Tobey is an American artist from Santa Fe, New Mexico, who creates ceramic, brass, and patina animal sculptures in both modern and abstract styles. Along with her husband, Gene, she worked for decades to create animal forms. Her artworks, inspired by the mythologies of the Native Americans, have been commissioned by the government and private institutions, and exhibited worldwide.

With Gene Robey, she has co-authored a book titled Partners in Art: Gene and Rebecca Tobey.

Rebecca Tobey was born Rebecca Upton in 1948 in Mason, Texas. Her father was a scientist in Oak Bridge, East Tennessee. Throughout her childhood, she was fascinated with animals and nature. She and her siblings spent their summer holidays at a resort on Watts Bar Lake in Tennessee; there, they mimicked the life of Huckleberry Finn, and would watch and imitate the calls of mourning doves and bobwhite quail.

Tobey left Tennessee to study at the Rogers Hall School, a boarding school in Lowell, Maryland, where her teachers told her that she was not talented enough to become an artist. At Lowell she obtained a MA degree and later started her professional life in Long Island, New York.

Initially, Tobey lived and worked in New York City; however, during a 1975 stopover in Santa Fe, New Mexico, she was inspired to spontaneously move there. She worked as the director of a Santa Fe art gallery and met Gene Tobey, who had held an exhibition of his raku pottery; the duo started collaborating on artwork. Initially, they made ceramics, but from the later part of 1990s, the pair began using other mediums, such as bronze and patina. In 1997, Rebecca and Gene created their first sculpture, "Wind River," which they exhibited at Western State College, Gunnison, Colorado, where their children were studying. Their second sculpture was a large, curved buffalo named "The Tobey Buffalo". "Rising Star," another buffalo sculpture, was smaller and carved in bronze. The animal forms they created were inspired by Native American mythologies.