Robert Heinecken was born in Denver, Colorado on October 29, 1931. He began his education at Riverside Junior College in Riverside, California (1949-1951), was a fighter pilot in the U.S. Marine Corp from 1953-1957, and went on to study art at the University of California, Los Angeles, earning a BA in 1959, and an MA in 1960. In 1964 he founded the graduate program for photography at UCLA, and retired from the institution in 1991. He was a member of the Board of Trustees of The Friends of Photography, and a chairman of the Society for Photographic Education. He received a Guggenheim Fellowship (1976), a National Endowment for the Arts Individual Artists Grant (1977, 1981, 1986), and Polaroid Corporation grants to use 20×24 and 40×80 cameras (1984, 1985, 1988).
Since 1964, Heinecken has had over sixty solo shows internationally including: Rhona Hoffmann Gallery, Chicago (2019); WIELS Contemporary Art Centre, Brussels (2014); the Museum of Modern Art, New York (2014); the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2014); the Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona, Tucson, and a 35-year retrospective exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago in 1998.
His work is in the collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; George Eastman House; and the Mills College Art Gallery, among others. He died on May 18, 2006.
Robert Heinecken12 Figure Squares, 196712 Silver Gelatin Prints Mounted8.75 x 11.75 inches
