Robert Huot

Robert Huot (b. 1935) was born on Staten Island. He had always been interested in artistic activities, but did not consider himself to be an artist until meeting the art professor Tom Young, a member of the Abstract Expressionism movement, while he studied chemistry at Wagner College. Huot finished his chemistry degree and took some art classes before beginning his post graduate job as a pigment chemist. He was shortly after drafted into the army and there decided he would prefer a life in the arts. After being discharged from the army, he attended graduate school at Hunter College and quit his chemist job to run a small paint factory specializing in oil paint for Nate Berman. Unfortunately, acrylic paint was on the rise and the factory closed shortly. Huot took up an assistant teaching position at Hunter and painted in his free time. He accredits the “official” start of his career as an artist to the 1963 performance of his and Bob Morris’ performance piece War at Judson Church. As a painter, Huot draws inspiration from nature and his place within it. His works are not done in pursuit of imitating nature: like many other modern and contemporary artists, Huot understands his paintings to be not a picture but an object made up on canvas and paint. He currently lives and works on a farm in Chenango County, New York.