Robert Niedzwiecki was born and raised in central New York and grew to love the varied landscapes represented in this region. An artist in high school, Niedzwiecki won an art scholarship from the National Scholastic Art Competition but instead chose to attend the Air Force Academy. Following a tour of duty in Arizona, Niedzwiecki returned to his first love and attended college at Purchase College where he received a Bachelor’s in Fine Arts, and uncovered a passion for teaching. He then spent the next thirty years teaching high school art, primarily Advanced Placement courses, in a suburb of Syracuse. In 2010 he retired from teaching and devoted himself to becoming a better draftsman and painter with an intensive ten thousand hours of study; this led to his realization that a painter must continue every day to learn, experiment, and grow in order to do their best work.

He has learned that everything begins with seeing and drawing; he draws from life at every opportunity. His subject interests are broad as he works in still life, figure, and portrait, and for his most finished work: the landscape. He prefers a realistic style as that is the most direct way for him to communicate his feelings about the subject. He has always been interested in finding the right, personal balance in composition, color choice, and values. While the end result of hours of painting is a tangible product, his true love is the process of discovery each painting invites. He first fell in love with painting doing a watercolor project in seventh grade, sitting the whole period with nothing to do but look and make marks on a page representing what he saw and felt. Fifty years later, he’s still doing the same thing with the same love and wonder.