Best known for his photorealistic drawings, Longo explores imagery within a complex social and cultural forces. Robert Longo was born in 1953, in Brooklyn, New York, and has had a childhood fascination with mass media: movies, television, magazines, and comic books, which continue to deeply influence his art. One of the quintessential artists of the 1980s, Longo is perhaps best known for the writhing, dancing figures in his iconic Men in the Cities series.

The American artist´s drawings are, perhaps, his most iconic. They are as much about the content they depict as they are about the artist´s intense devotion to the practice of drawing. His amazingly deep, anthracite charcoal drawings show emotional motives. Perhaps the best known photorealist series of Robert Longo´s is Men in the Cities, depicting contorted, life-size human figures in an urban setting. Robert Longo´s art focuses on his never-ending investigation of the themes of power and authority, which also permeate his series of blackened American flags (Black Flags, 1989–91), and oversized handguns (Bodyhammers, 1993–95). Longo´s series, Monsters, which depict massive breaking waves, and The Sickness of Reason, featuring atomic bomb blasts, followed in 2002 and 2004. It was during the 1980s that Robert Longo started to produce editions, mainly lithographs. He then gradually developed a high-end print technique, Pigment Print, which allows him to reproduce his drawings perfectly. Robert Longo´s prints capture the same level of detail and emotional impact of the original drawings.

Robert Longo

Robert Longo is known for large-scale, hyperrealistic charcoal portraits that consider power, authority, and social unrest.

Robert Longo is known for large-scale, hyperrealistic charcoal portraits that consider power, authority, and social unrest. In the early 1980s, Longo earned acclaim for his bold “Men in the Cities” series, which features business-suited subjects posed in uncanny contortions. Since then, he has depicted scenes from the Occupy Wall Street movement, the aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo shooting in Paris, Black Lives Matter protests, and refugee migrations. A member of the loose cohort of Pictures Generation artists who repurpose mass media images in their artwork, Longo has drawn on photographs and art historical works for inspiration. He often uses a monochromatic palette, carefully building his charcoal surfaces to create a sense of depth and contrast. Longo has exhibited at the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, the Brooklyn Museum, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, among other institutions. On the secondary market, his work has sold for seven-figure prices. Longo’s practice also includes photography, performance, and sculpture.

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