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Martin Tobias was born in 1932 in New York attended the High School of Music and Art graduated from the Cooper Union Art School and then studied at the Art Students League and spent two years tutored by Hans Hoffman the Bauhaus abstractionist. After school he became part of the Madison Avenue rat race and for ten years worked as art director/designer for some of the top advertising agencies and magazines in New York. The groundwork was good: learning to meet impossible deadlines, understanding the client's instructions and interpreting them commercially in graphic language. He turned out quality art in his studio and became a successful free-lance art director moving in 1966 to Riverside to become art director for Bourns an electronics components manufacturer. In the evenings and at weekends he painted working in acrylics and developing a recognisable style in Riverside and Southern California galleries. In 1978 he decided again to free-lance and devote more time to his art. The painting however was replaced by an ink to metal application of colour as the medium of etching intrigued and captured Tobias' time and creative energies. He has now developed a distinctive style: by using a selective colour palette he cuts his etching plates to emphasise the contours and delineate the different sections of the image. His work has been exhibited in Hawaii California and Florida.