Painter, printmaker, designer, and multi-media artist Robert Kushner was born in Pasadena, California, in 1949. He received his B.A. in Visual Arts with honors from the University of California, San Diego in 1971. In the mid 1970s he was intrumental in forming the Pattern and Decoration movement, described as a reclamation of decorative art from its relegation as a trivial set of crafts to a serious and significant aspect of the fine art world. Much of his focus meditates on flora, with concentration on still lifes as well as graphic patterns based on nature, Islamic and European textiles, and the vivid color palettes of Fauvism. He has stated: "Decoration, an abjectly pejorative dismissal for many, is a very big, somewhat defiant declaration for me." 

Kushner has exhibited frequently in the U.S. and internationally, and his work can be found in the public collections of the Museum of Modern Art (NY); the Metropolitan Museum of Art (NY); the Whitney Museum of Art (NY); the National Gallery of Art (Washington, D.C.); the Corcoran Gallery of Art (Washington, D.C.); Tate Gallery, London; San Francisco MOMA (CA); Honolulu Museum of Art (HI); Denver Art Museum (CO); Uffizi Gallery (Italy); J. Paul Getty Trust Los Angeles (CA); the Ludwig Museum, St. Petersburg, Russian; and the Philadelphia Museum of Art (PA). 

A complete C.V. can be found on his website.