Photo by Susan M. Ross
Robert Tombs is an Ottawa, Canada-based artist/graphic designer/curator. He was elected a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts (RCA), a constituency of over 650 working artists, designers and craftspersons, in 2008 and its president in 2018.
Tombs’s experimental practice in painted installation — in which he explores the methods, materials, and meaning of painting across multiple media — includes Brigus Mark (Brigus, Newfoundland, 2007); The Morality of Paint: Erfurt Window (glassbox, Erfurt, Germany, 2008); Empire (Modern Fuel Artist-run Centre, Kingston, Ontario, 2011); L’Occupation (ParisCONCRET, Paris, France, 2013); and the eighteen suites of his seventeen-year survey exhibition, Factory (Mississippi Valley Textile Museum, Almonte, Ontario, 2024). The Mississippi Valley Textile Museum will publish Robert Tombs: The Morality of Paint, Vols. I–XVIII in late 2024.
His work as a graphic designer is informed by the experience he gained as Senior Designer, Cornell University Press, from 1999 to 2003. A travelling retrospective, Robert Tombs: Index. Graphic Works 1985–2015, organized by Owens Art Gallery, opened at the Owens in October 2015, and Mount Saint Vincent University Art Gallery in December 2015. Robert Tombs: Index. Graphic Works 1985–2015, the exhibition’s award-winning publication, was acquired by the German National Library, Leipzig. Tombs has received 45 arts awards and is included in a number of public collections including Art Gallery of Nova Scotia; Artexte; Canada Council Art Bank; Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal; National Gallery of Canada Library; Owens Art Gallery; Winnipeg Art Gallery; American Institute of Graphic Arts; Columbia University; Yale University; Angermuseum Erfurt; Deutsche Nationalbibliothek; and Konstfack University of Arts, Crafts and Design.
Tombs has a MFA from Yale University School of Art where his thesis was “Light Years: The Glass Paintings of Josef Albers 1918–1932.