Robert was born in1950, in Ann Arbor Michigan and grew up in Chicago. His childhood was marked by broken homes in rough neighborhoods. When he was ten, his stepmother, having discovered his artistic talent, drafted him to sketch portraits on the beaches of the Chicago lakefront to help support the family. He charged 50 cents for each portrait and averaged between 5 and 8 dollars a day. Although he had to contribute all of the money to the family, he benefited greatly from this experience at that early age. He was eleven when he won the Golden Key Award for Art, a citywide competition throughout Chicago Public Schools. At about that time he also won a scholarship to attend a series of lectures at The Art Institute of Chicago.
After being discharged from the Army in 1970, he attended The Maryland School of Art and Design in Silver Spring. To help finance his career he sketched portraits in the summer on the boardwalk in Ocean City, MD and continued to do this for ten years. It was during those years that he perfected his skill as a portrait artist so that commissioned work became, and continues to be, an important part of his art career.
While attending art school he began to appreciate abstract art and studied the works of Rothko, Rauschenberg, Johns, Indiana and Thiebaud, among others. This appreciation led to several series of non-representational and abstract paintings. It also had a deep and lasting effect on his approach to realism. He is currently working on blending abstract elements with realism while maintaining the importance and necessity of both.