This biography from the Archives of AskART:
|  The following information was submitted by the artist, September 2011.
Robert Ferguson had parents who recognized his emerging talent and arranged for him to take his first art lessons at the age of eight years. By the time he turned 11 he won his first art award. He continued to win local art guild competitions in painting and sculpting until he moved on to attend the Parsons School of Design in New York City. There he majored in illustration with Robert Shore and Ed Renfro, and watercolor painting with David Dewey and Barbara Nechis, author of WaterColor, The Creative Experience.
After graduating from that institution in 1984, Ferguson opened his own commercial design studio on 23rd street in New York City and remained in Manhattan, working as a commercial artist for nine years. Among his clients were the Estee Lauder company and European based Christian Bernard Jewelers, as well as greeting card and textile design firms.
Robert’s first gallery showing for his paintings was in 1998 in Escondido, California. It was there that his career as a fine artist started with paintings of the California landscape. He also started numbering and dating his paintings at this point. After showing in several galleries over a five year span he turned to high end outdoor art shows, the most important being in the La Quinta area where he won many awards.
At this time he also built and worked in a studio in Montana on the Clark Fork river near Wild Horse Plains being represented by a major gallery in Big Fork. His travels also include Venice and Cinque Terre, Italy and Brugge, Belgium. From 1998 to 2008 Robert worked strictly outdoors.
After 2008 he started working in the studio with the figure, still life (strictly from life) and studio landscapes from his plein-air studies. It was at his Escondido, Grand Ave studio that controversy arose because of one of his male nude paintings that he put on public display in his studio window. This was his first official working studio. It was at this point that he started sculpting.
Robert's work is influenced mostly by the California Impressionists. His style could be called impressionist realism with some influence from the European Impressionists and the Hudson School of Painters. He works with a minimalist palette of three colors, red yellow and blue.
| |
| ** If you discover credit omissions or have additional information to add, please let us know at registrar@AskART.com. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Robert Ferguson is also mentioned in these AskART essays:
The California Art Club
|