Tobeen (Bordeaux, July 20, 1880 - Saint-Valery-sur-Somme, March 1938) is the pseudonym of the French artist Félix Elie Bonnet.

Tobeen stayed frequently in the western part of thé Pyrenees, Basque Country, but was born and bred in Bordeaux. Because of his frequent reference to Basque subjects within his paintings he became known as a Basque artist. However, he was not a Basque and neither were his parents.^[1]

From 1910 he worked in Paris where he maintained relations with the group of Pablo Picasso and George Braque and with the group of the Duchamp brothers (Gaston, Raymond and Marcel) in Puteaux where the first Section d'Or exposition was organized. But Tobeen was not a city-dweller. He loved a life of liberty, the sea, the woods and after 1920 he settled in Saint-Valery-sur-Somme. Tobeen's paintings, drawings and woodcarvings show the traces of his Parisian period and his passion for the poetry in human life.

Exhibitions

• Galerie La Boétie (Paris): La Section d'Or, 1912
• Armory Show (New York), 1913
• Mánes Union of Fine Arts, Mánes Pavilion, (S.V.U. Manes), Prague, 1914
• Tobeen, un poète du kubisme: Bordeaux, Galerie Musée des beaux-arts, 2012 June 8 - September 16

List of Museums with paintings of Tobeen

The Netherlands

• Centraal Museum, Utrecht
• Scheringa Museum voor Realisme, Spanbroek
• Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo

France

• Musée Basque, Bayonne
• Musée des Beaux Arts de Bordeaux, Bordeaux
• Musées Menton, collection Wakefield, Menton
• Musée des Beaux Arts de Nancy, Nancy