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Robert Roark
Mr. Roark is a native of Laurel, Mississippi, a place we northerners refer to as the Deep South, but he affectionately calls home. His earliest recollections of developing an interest in art center around his frequent visits to the local museum. “The town had a wonderful museum that kept me going back,” he recalls. “The museum was filled with beautiful paintings. I lived in that museum just looking at art.” At 21 years of age, he set himself up in a New York City apartment and enrolled in classes at the Art Students League and the National Academy of Design. “Because I never considered going into any other field, I never considered any other jobs. Besides, I figured if I was going to study art why not enroll in an art school where that’s its only focus.” He received his formal training there and at the Cape Cod School of Art under such noted artists as William Draper, Daniel Greene, and Henry Hensche.
Roark found that he had a happy talent for illustration and portrait work. For the next fifteen years he kept himself gainfully employed while perfecting his skills as an artist. It was during these busy New York years that he began to travel back and forth to Provincetown on the Cape, where he mixed easily with the established arts community.
He has been the recipient of a Ford Foundation Scholarship and the Kunyoshi Memorial Scholarship. His miniature oil paintings, 5" x 7" and smaller, have won Mr. Roark as many as five national awards in a year, including First Place and Best of Show in the Montana Miniature Society Show. He has won numerous awards including the Best in Show Award in the Leo Diehl Exhibition.
His nudes and portraits have received wide national and international recognition and have won many awards. Both the National Arts Club and Salmagundi Club have recognized his work with first place awards. In 1996 he was asked to jury the Copley Society's annual Group Show and in 1998 was invited to participate in a major event to raise funds for Boston's Battered Women Clinic held at the Copley Society.
Mr. Roark has exhibited in New York City at the National Arts Club and the Salmagundi Club. In Washington D.C. at the Smithsonian, and in Naples, Florida at the Naples Museum of Art. His work can also be found in Hirschhorn’s permanent private collection, the Cape Museum of Fine Arts, Dennis, MA.
In 2001, Mr. Roark was the featured artist for the celebrated "Pops by the Sea" event held each year in Hyannis with the renowned Boston Pops orchestra to raise funds for the Cape Cod Arts Foundation. From November, 2001, to February, 2002, the Cape Cod Museum of Art held a retrospective exhibition of Mr. Roark’s work highlighting his artistic mastery. Mr. Roark has also been invited to take part in several exhibitions at The Cahoon Museum over the past several years. In 2006 Mr. Roark was accepted as a member of the prestigious International Guild of Realism and his work has been part of their 2006 - 2009 juried exhibitions. In 2009, his work was included in the permanent collection of the Cahoon Museum of American Art, Cotuit, MA. Mr. Roark's artwork can also be found in many private and corporate collections worldwide.
Mr. Roark's paintings have been described as "a mastery of reflected light." His landscapes and still lifes "invite tactile exploration" and his interior scenes have elicited references to Vermeer, "while still modern and completely Mr. Roark's own, in style and subject." Describing his work, Mr. Roark has said that he paints in "a simple and straightforward manner, choosing to define the landscape and other subjects in terms of light as opposed to color." Through his numerous subjects Mr. Roark has laid claim to an exquisite corner of the present Age of Enlightenment by creating mirror images of the passion which resides within him.
Robert Paul Galleries is proud to show the works of American artist Robert Roark.
