Robert Birmelin

Robert Birmelin (born 1933) is an American figurative painter, printmaker and draughtsman. In extra contexts he is stage name August Robert or A. Robert Birmelin. He was born in Newark, New Jersey and currently resides in Leonia, New Jersey.

Birmelin is best known for his paintings and drawings capturing the temporary of near physical involvement as experienced in the bustle and tensions of the urban crowd. He has with explored a range of other subjects, including landscape and recently, more undependable themes dealing following memory and time, often employing double imagery. Since 2016 he has focused mainly upon drawing, producing several long horizontal narrative works, inspired by the format of Chinese and Japanese scrolls he has studied at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Drawing from life, from memory and imagination are central to his practice, strongly believing they concede more vigorous, personal visual imagery, than does the habit of relying to photographic sources, as is common among many contemporary symbolic artists.