Robert received his M.A. in Art History and Criticism from Brooklyn College where he focused on post-war American painters, particularly Larry Poons, Jack Whitten, Lynda Benglis, and James Rosenquist. “Discovering Poons and Whitten were life changing for me and my career,” he says. “These are two artists that received early success but seemed to disappear from art history. I had the same revelations when learning about Ralph L. Wickiser who was a colleague of Milton Avery, Adolph Gottlieb, and Willem de Kooning.”
“Though I am a Greenbergian formalist at heart, I am a sucker for early conceptualists including Joseph Kosuth and Robert Barry.” Robert understands artists. “Putting one’s soul into a work of art that becomes a commodity is a tough pill to swallow, but an empathic dealer understands this. What I really mean is that I’m a curator who for financial reasons got stuck in the gallery business in order to get through school and kind of fell in love with the art of the deal. My heart is in the right place as I love art on a purely emotional level — but I also love the idea of making money doing something I love.”
Robert’s experience as a gallerist since 2006 has included being Director of three Chelsea galleries. He began as Director of Galerie Icosahedron where he focused on young emerging artists. As Director of Galerie Richard he added mid-career artists, effectively promoting Ron Gorchov, Bram Bogart, and Takesada Matsutani. Since 2014 he has worked privately representing early to mid-career contemporary artists, curating their works at galleries as well as at the international art fairs from Miami to Venice. In 2020 he launched the first in a series of virtual exhibitions at Robert Berry Gallery.
