RAiR | 1987

Robert Colescott

Robert Colescott (1925-2009) was born into a musical family in Oakland, California and was himself a drummer. He served with the army in France during WWII and returned home to attend college at the University of California at Berkley, graduating with a BA in 1949 and a MA in 1952. During this time he travelled to Paris to study with the Cubist painter Fernand Leger. In 1964 Robert was awarded a fellowship at the American Research Center in Cairo, Egypt and later taught at the American University there. After living in Paris, he returned to San Francisco in 1970, then moved to Tucson in the 1980s to teach at the University of Arizona, achieving the status of Emeritus Professor of Art. Robert’s work is held in the collections of, amongst others, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum of Modern Art in New York. In 1997 he became the first African-American artist to represent the United States in a solo-exhibition at the Venice Biennale.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Colescott