Leonia Visual Artist Robert Birmelin (born 1933) is an American figurative painter, printmaker, and draughtsman.
Birmelin is best known for his paintings and drawings capturing the drama of close physical involvement as experienced in the movement and tensions of the urban crowd. He has also explored a range of other subjects, including landscape and recently, more subjective themes dealing with memory and time, often employing double imagery. Since 2016 he has focused mainly on drawing, producing several long horizontal narrative works, inspired by the format of Chinese and Japanese scrolls he has studied at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Drawing from life, from memory and imagination are central to his practice, strongly believing they yield more vigorous, personal visual imagery, than does the habit of relying to photographic sources, as is common among many contemporary figurative artists.
Rob’s feature on the New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/1997/12/14/nyregion/in-person-commuter-artist.html
Rob’s feature on PBS: file:///var/mobile/Library/
Rob’s Website: http://robertbirmelin.com/
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