Robert attended Leicester College of Art between 1952-4 as a part time student before completing 2 years army service in Egypt from 1954-6. He resumed art school in 1957 and then worked as a show designer whilst continuing to paint and exhibit in Leicester, the RA, RI and Paris Salon.

He was elected to membership of the Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolour and the Royal Society of Marine Artists in 1985. He portrays a wide variety of subjects from beaches and estuaries of the Cornwall and Norfolk coasts to sporting events such as Cowes and the Henley Regatta.

Also skilled in figurative and still-life paintings he was commissioned by the Light Dragoons to paint the occasion of the presentation of the Guidon to their Commander in Chief in 1996.