Born in Toledo, Ohio, in 1938, Robert Heindel recalls that both drawing and painting were a natural focus for him. A progression to art school simply wasn’t possible either financially or practically. Instead, like many young artists he found himself a job in a professional art studio.

Following graduation from Famous Artists his career flourished. At first in the world of illustration where, during the 1970’s, he was recognised as one of Americas finest and achieved work on the covers of ‘Time’ magazine and won a place in the permanent collection of The Smithsonian Institute in Washington DC.

One night in the early 1980’s chance tickets to the ballet (Nureyev & Fonteyn no less) presented him with unfamiliar territory which found at once compelling and his obsession with dance was fired. More than twenty years on, he has made contemporary ballet his world, earning such responses as ‘the greatest painter of dance since Degas’.