Robert Hawkins

Biography

Robert Hawkins

Born 1951, California, USA

Lives and works in London, UK

Robert Hawkins is best known for his "ferocious" style of realism. Hawkins moved from Sunnyvale, California to San Francisco in 1970 where he became involved in the glam and then the early punk music and art scene. Attracted to Haight Ashbury and the counter culture at first, in the end it was the natural beauty of the city, the public parks, cemeteries, and waterfronts that began to become the subjects of his artwork.

Criticism

Cookie Mueller, (1983), Details Magazine... “It’s sensational, a banquet, a veritable luau of fantasies.”

Rene Ricard, (1993,) Jean Michel Basquait Catalog, Whitney Museum ..."You cannot name one painter of his generation comparison with whom Basquait would not find laughable. the exception would be Robert Hawkins whose work Jean admired and collected"

Glenn O' Brien (June 21, 2006), GQ Magazine ..."Robert Hawkins is not a big famous artist because he has resisted all attempts to make him that. And, up to a point, that was necessary and right. But now that he has a large, madcap, ferociously witty, and startlingly original body of work behind him; now that he has gone through his self-crucifixion phase and resurrected himself from the dead; now that he has allowed the smile to follow quickly the scowl; now, I think, it's time he can relax and enjoy making artwork on his own roving, druidical, picaroon, anarchic, swashbuckling terms."

Breidenbach, Tom (October, 2008), Artforum ..."at once brooding and celebratory, a triumph of a sort of "outsider" aesthetic that refuses to be pinned down to one attitude, whether cynical. fantastical, or satirical."

Collections

Kate Spade, David Bowie, Courtney Love, Jim Jarmusch, Andy Warhol Estate, Jean-Michel Basquiat Estate, Jacquelyn Schnabel, Museum of Modern Art, New York