1920-2003
Works in the Collection
Biography
Robert Blackburn was born in Summit, New Jersey, in 1920. He studied in New York City at the Art Students League, the Uptown Art Laboratory, the Harlem Community Art Center, the Wallace Harrison School of Art, and at Atelier 17. Blackburn worked with the WPA Harlem Community Art Center and was on the faculty of Cooper Union, the School of Visual Arts, and New York University. Blackburn is the founder and director of the Printmaking Workshop in New York, where he supervised artists’ editions by Benny Andrews, Will Garnet, Romare Bearden, Boris Margo, and John von Wicht. In 1954, Blackburn was the recipient of a Whitney Fellowship. He received the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture award in 1987 and the Governor’s award in 1988. His work is represented in numerous collections, among which are The Brooklyn Museum; The Baltimore Museum of Art; the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; and Atlanta University.