Robert Kushner

The artist Robert Kushner is a painter, sculptor, performance artist, and a founder of the Pattern and Decoration movement, which took off in the 1970s. Influenced by Islamic and European decorative arts, Chinese and Japanese sumi-e ink painting, and American abstract painting, Kushner utilizes and merges many of these antiquated techniques and motifs. The artist is known in particular for his use of flora, seen clearly in series such as Wild Gardens

Kushner's work has been exhibited widely throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia, including solo shows at the Whitney Museum and the Brooklyn Museum in 1984 and the Philadelphia Institute of Contemporary Art in 1987. His work was included in the 1975 Whitney Biennial. In 2004, he was commissioned to create a large-scale mosaic mural, entitled 4 Seasons Seasoned at the 77th Street and Lexington Avenue subway station in New York.