Robert Kushner, was born in 1949, in California. In 1971 he received his       B. A. in Visual Arts, with honors, from The University of California at San Diego,  La Jolla. Robert is a painter and sculptor and has been exhibiting his works in  media that includes performance art, painting, sculpture, and various printmaking techniques. His works have been exhibited in Japan, France, Germany, Italy, England, Russia,  Denmark and The Netherlands. He has completed several private commissions including works for The Rockefeller Center, New York, the Grammercy Tavern Restaurant New York, and The Royal Pines Golf Course, Kobe, Japan.
     Robert gained attention in the early seventies as a performance artist, using food, fabric and nudity. He was associated with the Pattern and Decoration movement in the seventies for it's artistic value rather than for it's political nature. He used large scale fabric collage and bold paintings of the figure. Since 1987 flowers have been the subject of Kushner's works, more recently adding fruits and vegetables. Kushner has worked on many projects in Hawaii and the influence of the tropics can be seen in his works: the colors & tropical flowers.
     His bold use of color and fluid drawing are used in his depiction of Iris buds and flowers in his recent series "Goncourt". The Goncourt series are mono-prints with gold and aluminum leaf. The Iris are set on a background of fabric patterns from Kushner's fabric collection. The Goncourt's were brothers in France in the 19th century that wrote a manifesto on decorative arts.