Robbie Conal grew up on the upper west side of Manhattan (not Kansas)--his parents were both union organizers who considered the major art museums to be day care centers for him. He attended the Art Students League when he was 8 years old. Not by choice. Then, the High School of Music & Art in New York '61),was an O.H. (original hippie) in the Haight Ashbury by winter, '63, received a BFA from San Francisco State University (1969... more or less) and a Masters of Fine Arts degree from Stanford University (1978... for sure).
He taught drawing at the University of Connecticut (Storrs) for two miserable years, '82-'83 (the years were miserable... he was, well, a miserablist).
In 1984 he moved to Los Angeles and made nasty little black and white oil portraits of ugly old white men in suits and ties- politicians and bureaucrats who, by his absurdist standards, had abused their power in the name of representative democracy. In 1986 he began translating them into satirical street posters ("MEN WITH NO LIPS")
He developed an irregular guerrilla army of volunteers, taking the posters on tour: putting them up in on the streets of major cities around the country. He has made more than 60 posters satirizing politicians and bureaucrats from both parties, televangelists and global capitalists. He also takes on censorship, the Supreme Court, and environmental issues.
