artists

HILDA ROBINSON
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Robinson uses oil pastels to create evocative paintings that depict everyday lives of African Americans - from playground, to home, to school to leisure and church. Though educated in art, her work appears folksy and self-taught. This paradox plays out in colorful scenes centered on people and their interactions. Robinson’s painting practice is informed by the rich history of self-taught African American painters, humor, and storytelling. Art critics have described Robinson’s art as “glowingly human”. “The beauty and significance of the figures are not there because the figures are exotic or unusual, but precisely because they are mundane. The subject matter is ostensibly about Black culture, but depicted in such an affirming way that there is a universal quality.”

Hilda Robinson lives and paints in Oakland, California. Her gift as a painter was discovered at a tender age of three, when her father bought her first paint box. Her talent was nurtured until she enrolled at Tyler School of Fine Arts at Temple University. She completed her BA and MA studies in art at UC Berkeley. Robinson has received the prestigious awards Jan Hart-Schuyers Merit Award through the "Art of Living Black" exhibitions at Richmond Art Center (2001) and the Atlanta Life Insurance Purchase Award (1988).