Robert Longo
American (1953)
Robert Longo is an American painter and sculptor who was born in Brooklyn, New York. He had a childhood fascination with mass media: movies, television, magazines, and comic books, which continue to influence his art. Longo has studied at the University of North Texas, Accademia di Belle Arti, and Buffalo State College. While at Buffalo State College, Longo and his friends established an avant-garde art gallery in the Essex Art Center, now known as the Hallwalls Contemporary Art Center. By being involved with the gallery, he was influenced to move to New York City to join the underground art scene of the 1970s.
Longo became famous in the 1980's for his series of large-scale drawings in charcoal and graphite entitled “Men in the Cities”. In this series, Longo depicted sharply dressed businessmen writhing in contorted emotion. He is also well known for his “Magellan” project. This projected consisted of 366 drawings (one a day) that recorded the life of an artist.
Longo has had major retrospective exhibitions at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 1989, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago in 1990, and Musee D’Art Moderne Et D’Art Contemporain de Nice in 2009. His work is represented in numerous collections including the Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim Museum, and the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris. He currently lives with his wife and their 3 sons in New York.