Robert Shetterly was born in 1946 in Cincinnati, Ohio.
He graduated in 1969 with a degree in English from Harvard, where he took a
couple courses in drawing, which changed the direction of his creative life
from the written word to images. He was very active at that time in the
Civil Rights and the Anti-Vietnam War movements.
After college and moving to Maine in 1970, he taught himself drawing,
printmaking, and painting. While trying to become proficient in printmaking
and painting, he illustrated widely. For 12 years he did drawings for the
editorial page of the Maine Times newspaper, the National Audubon's
children's newspaper Audubon Adventures, and approximately 30 books.
A collection of his drawings and etchings, Speaking Fire at Stones,
was published in 1993. He is well known for his series of 70 painted
etchings based on William Blake's Proverbs of Hell, and for another
series of 50 painted etchings reflecting on the metaphor of the
Annunciation. His painting tends toward the narrative and the surreal, and
he has not been, until this time, a portrait painter.
His ongoing project,
Americans Who Tell the Truth depicts dozens of U.S. activists, authors,
and political leaders, past and present, in
3-feet-by-2-1/2-feet paintings that extol the subjects' work and legacy to
forge "a more perfect union" and a more livable world. The traveling,
still-expanding exhibit includes a curriculum to encourage students' deeper
exploration of the importance of research, advocacy, service, storytelling,
and integrity.
Robert Shetterly lives, with his partner Gail Page, also a painter, in
Brooksville, Maine.
(Source:
http://www.americanswhotellthetruth.org/pgs/artist_bio.html)
