1. Robert Heindel was an American painter, illustrator, and stage designer best known for his paintings of dance and performing arts.
16 Facts About Robert Heindel
1. 2.
Robert Heindel was described as the best painter of dance of his time.
3.
Robert Heindel's works are found in the permanent collections of museums including the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, the National Portrait Gallery, London, the Norman Rockwell Museum, and the Glasgow Museums.
4.
Robert Heindel's mother worked at the local Willy's Jeep factory assembling carburetors.
5.
Robert Heindel began painting at an early age, encouraged by his parents, though especially his mother who believed him to be gifted.
6.
Robert Heindel enrolled at the Famous Artists School at 16, eventually becoming one of its most celebrated graduates.
7.
Robert Heindel often signed his paintings with the symbol of his wife Rose.
8.
Robert Heindel was known to comment to students that they needed to be prepared for a change in the illustration business, comparing 20th century illustrators to West Virginia coal miners.
9.
At the height of his illustration career in the 1980s, Robert Heindel pivoted into fine art; instead of painting American football players for 'Sports Illustrated,' he began to paint dancers, something he had wanted to do since first seeing the Royal Ballet's Rudolph Nureyev and Margot Fonteyn dance 'Paradise Lost' in 1962.
10.
At 44, Robert Heindel was considered too old to be entering the world of fine art, access that was often controlled by established New York galleries.
11.
Robert Heindel adopted a strategy of collaboration, study, and contemporaneous exhibition that would gain him access to the best dancers and performing arts companies around the world.
12.
Robert Heindel would spend one to two years preparing for a major exhibition.
13.
Robert Heindel rarely created images from final performances, preferring instead to paint dancers at rehearsal.
14.
Robert Heindel was commissioned in 1987 by Andrew Lloyd Webber to paint impressions from the musicals Cats and The Phantom of the Opera.
15.
In 1996, Robert Heindel had the opportunity to produce paintings from a Kabuki production.
16.
Robert Heindel died at his home in Guilford, Connecticut on July 3,2005, after a 10-year struggle with emphysema.