Robert Keyser

Robert Keyser
b. 1924, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
d. 1999, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Robert Keyser was a Philadelphia-based artist and printmaker who taught for twenty-eight years at the Philadelphia University of the Arts, before becoming the chairman of the painting department. As a young man, he moved to Paris to study art at the Atelier Fernand Léger. In 1991, he exhibited a series of watercolors in the group exhibition Philadelphia Art Now: Artists Choose Artists at the Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania, a museum that is renowned for launching the careers of under-recognized artists (most famously by giving Andy Warhol his first ever solo-show). Throughout his career, Keyser had solo shows in Paris, London, New York, Washington D.C., and Philadelphia.  After his death, several of his works were sold at auction, including a collage entitled "Blue Rectangle," which sold at Christie's in 2010.