Tobias Keene is a third-generation British figurative oil painter living and working in Los Angeles, California. Born in 1963 in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, his practice is grounded in a multigenerational artistic lineage in which painting functioned as a daily discipline—an inherited way of working rather than an abstract pursuit.

He is the son of Arthur Keene (1945–2012), whose work was exhibited extensively throughout Europe, including with the Royal Society of Portrait Painters, and the grandson of a Second World War artist known professionally as Van Art. Both his parents and grandfather were alumni of the Birmingham School of Art, embedding Keene early in a classically informed environment shaped by observational rigor and sustained engagement with figurative tradition.His stepmother, Karen Keene, further contributed to this creative upbringing, having begun her career at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, where she later led one of the wardrobe departments and produced theatrical work.

KEENE.STUDIO serves as the structural and conceptual framework through which this lineage continues. Functioning as an archive, working studio, and collaborative platform, it documents not only Keene’s own paintings, portraits, and long-term projects, but also the intergenerational dialogue that informs them. The studio foregrounds process, continuity, and authorship over trend-driven production, situating each work within a broader historical and familial context.

Influenced by his father and grandfather, and guided by the enduring lessons of Vermeer and Rembrandt, Keene’s work speaks quietly to collectors who value continuity over novelty. His paintings are held in prominent private and public collections. In the United States, works by Tobias Keene—alongside those of his father and grandfather—form part of the permanent collection of the Trout Museum of Art. Internationally, The King’s Horse resides in the collection of Charles Spencer and is displayed at Althorp House, underscoring Keene’s place within a continuing tradition of patronage and portraiture.