Northwest Drift
- Artist: Mark Tobey
- Date: 1958
- Medium: Tempera and gouache on paper on board
- Dimensions: support: 1135 x 905 mm
- Museum: Tate Modern
- Collection record: Tate Modern website
Listen to the free audio guide
About this artwork
This is the "Northwest Drift" by Mark Tobey, painted in 1958 in Seattle. The work is a meditative response to the city’s grey, hazy landscape, rendered in layers of light blue and grey tempera and gouache over a darker blue ground. A subtle lilac haze sweeps across the surface, creating a feeling of mist. Mark Tobey’s signature “white writing” – thousands of interlaced white lines forming a calligraphic mesh – is present here, although the composition lacks a clear centre. The artist, influenced by Eastern calligraphy and his Baha’i spirituality, used this technique to explore the spiritual and the subtle rhythms of nature. The title points to the Northwest region of the United States, where the atmosphere of wind, fog, and rain forests shaped his vision. In the bottom right, the painting is inscribed “Tobey | 58”, marking its year of creation.
See it in person
Northwest Drift is in the collection of Tate Modern on Bankside, London — free to enter. Point your phone at any artwork there and audioguide.london plays a free audio guide in six languages — no app download needed.
