Robert Kushner (American, b.1949) is a Contemporary painter, and is considered to be the founder of the Pattern and Decoration movement, which emphasized pattern-making as well as non-Western craft and design traditions. Born in Pasadena, CA, Kushner graduated with a BA in visual arts from the University of California, San Diego. He first gained recognition in the early 1970s as a performance artist, incorporating food, textiles, and nudity into his pieces. He also came to be known for his use of fabric collage in large-scale paintings. In the 1980s, he turned his focus toward flowers, fruits, and vegetables.

Kushner’s work is characterized by a use of rich color harmonies and bold, fluid drawing, combining natural, representational elements with abstract, geometric forms. He is heavily inspired by Islamic and European textiles, as well as by artists such as Henri Matisse, Georgia O’Keeffe, Charles Demuth, Pierre Bonnard, Ito Jakuchu, Qi Baishi, and Wu Changshuo.

Kushner has been commissioned to create public murals, including two large-scale mosaic murals at the 77th Street and Lexington Avenue subway station. He has also executed pieces for the Gramercy Tavern and Maialino restaurants in New York City, Union Square in Tokyo, the Ritz Carlton Highlands in Lake Tahoe, CA, the Federal Reserve System in Washington, D.C., and the Raleigh Durham International Airport in North Carolina. In addition, his work has been exhibited in numerous shows in the United States and abroad, including at the Whitney Biennial, the Venice Biennale, the Brooklyn Museum, and the Philadelphia Institute of Contemporary Art. His work is part of the permanent collections of the Brooklyn Museum, Los Angeles County Museum, The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Tate Gallery in London, and the Whitney Museum in New York, among others.

Kushner currently lives and works in New York.