User:Happyartist/sandbox

Robert David Herbert Bidner
Robert David Herbert Bidner (March 1, 1930 Youngstown, Ohio  – May 17, 1983, New York City, New York) was an American painter and advertising art director.

Life and work
Robert Bidner trained at the Cleveland Institute of Art in Cleveland, Ohio (1948–1952), where he was trained in figurative art and portraiture. He served in the US Army from 1953-1955. In the 1957, Bidner moved to New York City to pursue a career in art.

Bidner’s early artwork in New York City was abstract. He is best known for his more realistic paintings of architecture and cars from the mid-1970s through his death in 1983. While pursuing his painting career in New York he also worked as an advertising art director at Ted Bates advertising agency.

In January 1978, ARTnews magazine summarized his style: “Bidner portrays cars and buildings with an unerring attention to detail that renders them abstract rather than realistic…. But Bidner does not copy these subjects with Photo Realist reverence rather he idealizes them into symbols of the industrial age.” An Arts Magazine review of his 1975 show of automobile and architectural subjects stated “In these paintings, Bidner transforms the prosaic into poetry, but his is the poetry of hard metal and concrete." In his last show before his death at age 53, Arts Magazine described his work as, "Bidner manages to pay homage to man-made objects without bringing in the disharmony of man." In the same article, he described himself as a neo-classicist artist. Further stating, "I feel that my paintings have a groundwork in the past ...I'm building on something that went before."

Museums holding works

 * American Academy of Arts & Letters, New York City, New York
 * Johnson Museum of Art (formerly the Andrew Dixon White Museum of Art), Ithaca, New York
 * Butler Institute of American Art,Youngstown, Ohio
 * Canton Museum of Art, Canton, Ohio
 * Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, Ohio
 * Kalamazoo Institute of Arts, Kalamazoo, Michigan
 * National Academy of Design, Ranger Collection, New York City, New York
 * Smithsonian American Art Museum (formerly the National Collection of Fine Art) Washington, DC
 * Westmoreland Museum of American Art, Greensburg, Pennsylvania

Selected Solo Exhibitions

 * 1983: Gallery Henoch, New York City, New York
 * 1979: Cleveland Institute of Art, Cleveland, Ohio
 * 1977: FAR Gallery, New York City, New York
 * 1977: Mickelson Gallery, Washington, DC
 * 1975: FAR Gallery, New York City, New York
 * 1973: Brownstone Gallery, New York City, New York
 * 1972: Mickelson Gallery, Washington, DC
 * 1970: Mickelson Gallery, Washington, DC
 * 1969: Am Sachs Gallery, New York City, New York
 * 1967: AM Sachs Gallery, New York City, New York
 * 1963: Amel Gallery, New York City, New York