Biography
Robert Burkert
Born 1930 in Racine, Wisconsin
Robert Burkert’s early interest in art began close
to home with scholarship classes at the Charles A. Wustum Museum of Fine Arts
in Racine. His
early lithographs were created on an old press in a studio at the museum. His early art teachers were Sylvester and
Cherry B. Jerry at the Wustum, and Helen Sawyer at Racine’s
Washington Park High School. As a teenager, Burkert was also interested in
comic art, and drew a teen oriented comic strip for the Chicago Tribune.
As a teen, he also worked as a “ghost” artist on a
number of projects for Western Publishing.
These influences and interests later led him to the University of
Wisconsin-Madison where he studied drawing, painting and printmaking. His art professors included Dean Meeker,
Alfred Sessler, John Wilde, Don Anderson, James Watrous and Santos
Zingale. While a student there, Burkert
won recognition in regional competitive shows.
He received his B.S. degree in drawing, painting and printmaking from
UW-Madison in 1952 and his M.S. degree in painting and printmaking in 1955.
In 1953 Burkert married Nancy Ekholm and later they
had two children, Claire Loren and Rand.
He taught art at Denison
University in Granville, Ohio
in 1955. In 1956, he moved to Milwaukee where he was
professor and later head of the printmaking department at UW-Milwaukee where he
remained until 1993. Burkert’s screen
prints are well known.
Selected One-Man Exhibitions
1971 Bradley
Galleries, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
F.F.A. Galleries, Washington,
D.C.
Bergstrom Art
Center, Neenah, Wisconsin
1985 Robert
Burkert: 30 Years - A Survey of Paintings and Works on Paper from 1955 – 1985 Racine
Art Association: Charles A. Wustum Museum of Fine Arts, Racine
1994 Robert Burkert: A Retrospective 1950 - 1994,
UWM Fine Arts Gallery, Milwaukee
Selected Group Exhibitions
1950- 51 Contemporary Drawings from Twelve Countries,
Art Institute of Chicago
and 60 other major museums
1996-97 Self Portraits - Wisconsin Artists, Charles Allis
Art Museum, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Selected Awards
1960 Boston Print Makers Award
1973 Knapp Grant Award from UW system to further
innovative teaching
1974 Research grant from UWM Graduate
School to experiment in
monoprints
1978 Appointed to Board of Directors, Milwaukee Art Museum
1979 Wisconsin
Arts Board Grant, Photo Screen Experimentation
1983 Governor’s Award Print Commission, screen
print “Georgia O’Keefe”