ROBERT K. ROARK'S BIOGRAPHY

His nudes and portraits have received wide national and international recognition and have won many awards. Both the National Arts Club and Salmagundi Club have recognized his work with first place awards. Mr. Roark has also shown in the "Wet Art" and "Silent Art" exhibition at the Cape Museum of Fine Arts for several years. In 1996 he was asked to jury the Copley Society's annual Group Show and in 1998 was invited to participate in a major event to raise funds for Boston's Battered Women Clinic held at the Copley Society.

In 2001, Mr. Roark was the featured artist for the celebrated "Pops by the Sea" event held each year in Hyannis with the renown Boston Pops orchestra to raise funds for the Cape Cod Arts Foundation. From November, 2001, to February, 2002, the Cape Museum of Fine Arts held a retrospective exhibition of Mr. Roark’s work highlighting his artistic mastery. Also in February, 2002, Mr. Roark was invited to take part in The Cahoon Museum’s “Land of the Free, Home of the Brave” exhibition commemorating and honoring those lost on September 11th.

Mr. Roark has exhibited in New York City at the National Arts Club, the Wickersham Gallery, the Fox Gallery, the Flynn Gallery and the Salmagundi Club. He has also been shown in Taos, New Mexico; Columbus, Ohio; Sarasota, Florida; and in Washington D.C. at the Smithsonian and is in the permanent private collection of the Hirschorrn Museum and the Cape Museum of Fine Arts. Mr. Roark's art work can be found in many private and corporate collections worldwide. 

While in New York Mr. Roark worked as a portrait painter and an illustrator for such periodicals as the "New York Times". He has also done mural work for the Hotel Pierre and for the Pierre Cardin Resorts in Palm Springs, CA. Mr. Roark was the subject of recent articles in "Cape Cod Life" magazine and has been the featured artist for the "Cape Cod Times" and "Cape Cod Antiques and Arts Magazine".

In 1987 Mr. Roark had his first one-man show at Tree's Place, Orleans, MA and continued to hold one-man shows there until he and his wife Anita Winstanley Roark open their own gallery in 1995.

Mr. Roark's paintings have been described as "a mastery of reflected light." His landscapes and still lifes "invite tactile exploration" and his interior scenes have elicited references to Vermeer, "while still modern and completely Mr. Roark's own, in style and subject." Describing his work, Mr. Roark has said that he paints in "a simple and straightforward manner, choosing to define the landscape and other subjects in terms of light as opposed to color." His approach transports the viewer into a beautiful world of varied subjects and entices one to linger and explore radiant textures and evocative light. Through his numerous subjects Mr. Roark has laid claim to an exquisite corner of the present Age of Enlightenment by creating mirror images of the passion which resides within him. Mr. Roark has recently reproduced several of these beautiful images in a limited edition format, capturing the essence of his original paintings and of timeless Cape Cod.

Winstanley-Roark Fine Arts invites you to meet this contemporary Renaissance artist and view for yourself Mr. Roark’s luminescent works of art.