White Plains, NY (PRWEB) - The late artist Alton S. Tobey (1914-2005) distinguished himself during the six decades of his career as an historical painter and illustrator, with murals created for The Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C., The National Sea-Air-Space Museum on board The Intrepid aircraft carrier in New York City, at The MacArthur Memorial in Norfolk, VA and at many other museums and public institutions worldwide.  For years, he was also kept very busy as an illustrator for many books and magazines such as LIFE, Readers Digest and many others, for which he made trips all over the world doing research and creating art.

Yet, during all of these busy times, Tobey never forgot the students in his home community of Westchester County, NY; where he constantly did pro bono work as a teacher of art, and participated in many community art projects.

On Monday, June 19th, just a few days before the close of their school year, the Ridgeway Elementary School in White Plains, NY held a ceremony dedicating five murals that the school’s students had created over more than the past 20 years to this late artist and educator.  During his lifetime, Tobey, despite his fame as a nationally famous artist, spent many days mentoring students at Ridgeway and other Westchester County schools teaching art and murals painting.  In the 1980s, the program that fostered this effort was called Murals in Art, and it had been sponsored by a number of newspapers and many national and local companies and organizations. 

In 1985, in celebration of the Tricentennial of Westchester County, Tobey painted and donated a 12 x 20 foot mural titled Roots of Westchester containing dozens of historical images from the county’s past 300 years, to the White Plains County Court House, where it has been used for many years since then as an educational resource for Westchester teachers and students.

Over this past year following Tobey’s death in 2005, Mrs. Bonnie Ackerman, WINGS teacher at the Ridgeway School, working with the Arts in General Education Program sponsored by the White Plains School District and with the help of three students - Jael Andre, Maggie Noonan and Juan Rodas discovered five murals in the school, and felt the need to bring them and Alton Tobey’s tremendous influence on the murals program to the attention of present-day students, faculty and parents.

It was almost exactly twenty years ago on June 24th, 1986 that Ridgeway’s own fourth grade students’ 4 x 16 foot mural: Past, Present, Future had been completed under Tobey’s guidance had been finished.  Now installed in the school’s auditorium, like Tobey’s Roots mural at the Westchester County Court House, it also includes images from American history: the Declaration of Independence and Paul Revere representing the past; The Statue of Liberty and Westchester’s local Kingsland Point Lighthouse the present; and Technology and Children Becoming Adults leading the way to the future. 

Over 200 students and school faculty members attended the dedication on Monday, June 19th, and a framed collector’s lithograph of Alton Tobey’s Roots of Westchester mural, together with a legend describing the historical figures in it, a gift from David and Judy Tobey, son and daughter of the late artist, was presented to the school.  It was a “thank you” to Ridgeway’s teachers and students for remembering their late father’s life and work, and was presented by the curator of the Tobey Collection, who came up from New York City for the special dedication.

Visit The Alton Tobey Collection at : www.altontobey.org