Robert MacPherson
(click here to see artwork)

I spent my childhood in the Pacific Northwest. As a boy I whiled away a lot of school days secretly sketching in my notebook instead of listening to the teacher. During those days I was a great fan of the cartoons that appeared in Mad Magazine.

I enlisted in the Navy in 1966 and later received an appointment to the U.S. Naval Academy.  Upon graduation from Annapolis I was assigned to a ship stationed off the coast of Vietnam. The ship’s Chief Engineer introduced me to oil painting.

What began as a casual pastime soon blossomed into an obsession. I recall the title of my first painting was "Bearded Man Eating an Egg". The title had more artistic merit than the painting which featured a scraggly lumberjack with a fried egg floating before his eyes. (In retrospect, this seems an unpromising beginning to a career in fine art.)

I resigned from the Navy in 1978 and returned to live in the west where I continued to pursue my interest in painting.  I learned a lot by attending workshops with several noted artists including Richard Schmid. During this period I worked as an administrator at several universities and worked on art projects in my spare time. I also taught a painting course for five years at my last university. I acquired gallery representation in 1995 and as my art work began to sell, I phased out of my university "day job".

I became a full time artist in 2005 and nowadays I work in my home studio under the watchful eyes of two canine art critics.  My wife Ruby is very supportive of my art career--even though I occasionally track paint all over the house.  

Over the years my work has been shown in numerous galleries all over the country. My paintings have also appeared in numerous gallery shows and juried art exhibitions.
My interest in painting is refreshed by frequent experimentation with new techniques, compositions, and subject matter.  Most recently I have tried my hand at abstraction, relief carving and use of mixed media in collages. After many years focused mainly on traditional representational oil painting, these recent experiments in more contemporary forms have kept me excited and curious about the process of making art.