Mitchell L. Kolbe entered the professional art world at the age of fifteen helping his artist father with pen and ink illustration work. Summer jobs included illustrating for an advertising studio and work on huge printing presses for a packaging art and design firm. During his senior year of high school he was one of ten in the country awarded the national art merit scholarship and attended the Art Students League of N.Y.C. On weekends he attended classes at the Salmagundi Club. When he wasn’t attending classes he discovered his passion for painting outdoors or en plein air, in Central Park and the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens or Coney Island and the streets of Manhattan. After leaving art school he moved to Atlanta where he worked on the restoration of the Atlanta Cyclorama which depicted the battle of Atlanta during the American Civil War. Work soon followed in the field of graphics, illustration, murals, sculpture, and fine art. Kolbe’s work, like many artist, has evolved over the years, and has gone from the tight realism that illustration work required to a looser more poetic and painterly style. To suggest rather than be too literal. He believes that this way of painting allows the viewer to connect the dots themselves, drawing them more intimately into the original thought process and feelings that the artist himself felt. His style could best be described as lying somewhere between representational art and impressionism, with leanings toward tonalism, with a healthy dose of relying on his own unique voice that ultimately all artist must draw inspiration from. Some of the artists that have influenced Kolbe over the years include Rembrandt, George Inness, Joaquin Sorolla, John S. Sargent, Anders Zorn, George Bellows, N. C. Wyeth, Frank Frazetta and Richard Schmid, to name just a few. There are many other influences, especially from the Russian School of art around the turn of the century, and the American school of illustration.

Kolbe has never limited himself to any one genre and enjoys painting everything from portraiture, and the human figure to landscapes, still life and abstraction. Inspiration comes from every imaginable source and in the most unexpected places.

In addition to painting, Kolbe also sculpts which was something he never had formal education in but always had a passion for. This sculpture work led to building dioramas for the U. S. Park Service and creating fiberglass and plastic plants for E.P.C.O.T. at Disney World then creating and selling pirate sculptures in Disneys pirates of the Caribbean gift shop. Other work included a life sized Bronze Epiphany Cross Diver for the Greek Orthodox Church, Tarpon Springs Fl., and a life sized Bronze Greek Torch Bearer as a private commission. Many other sculpture commissions followed over the years and he is currently working on a series for himself based on the illustrations of A. B. Frost, Brer Rabbit, Brer Bear and Brer Fox.
                                             
Some other career highlights include sculpture and murals for Kennedy’s Space Center visitors center, murals for Universal Studios Portofino Bay Hotel, sculptures for the 1996 Summer Olympics, The Disney Family Museum, and many background murals for trade show exhibits such as G.E., Lear Jet, U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and N.A.S.A. Space Center. His work can be found in the collections of the Archbishop of Constantinople, The Florida State Governors Club, The Permanent Collection of the Art Students League, NYC, Antonio Banderas, and Richard Kessler’s Grand Bohemian Autograph Collection Hotels, to mention just a few. His work is presently represented by the galleries of the Kessler Grand Bohemian Autograph Collection Hotels. Currently he maintains a working studio in his home near Asheville, N. C. and in the River Art’s District, at 362 Depot st., Asheville, N. C., and as of summer of 2025, a studio at 940 Tunnel Road, Asheville, N.C.

Follow him on Instagram and Facebook or email at mitchkolbe@yahoo.com