Robert Sweeney's oil painting "Audubon Pond" was featured as the cover image of the 1991 Gallery 57 Collection catalogue.  Image size: 10.5" by 10.5"

Sweeney lives and works in Western Massachusetts where he has been a professor of Fine Arts at Amherst College since 1972.  His work is in public, private, corporate and museum collections.  Sweeney is represented by Roly-Michaux Gallery, Boston; Thronja Original Art, Springfield; Kendall Gallery, Wellfleet; Aptekar Arts Management, Cambridge and Miller Gallery, Cincinnati.

Robert Sweeney’s paintings subtly blend the personal with the technical. His paintings contain references not only to the history of painting and the technical aspects of art making but also include personal hints about the artist himself.  His landscape paintings are done primarily in the local setting of Western Massachusetts.  A still life painting of candied apples has the confident brushwork of an artist who can gaze at a complex subject and composition and not only transfer, but also reinterpret it onto a canvas. But within the same painting are references to the artist’s personal life. The Rome apples will have as a backdrop a topographical map of the city of Rome, a recent destination.  A still life of three balls will have each of them painted in the primary colors of red, yellow and blue, the artist both at work and play.

Robert Sweeney teaches painting and drawing at Amherst College in Amherst, Massachusetts, where he was formerly Chairperson of the Fine Art Department.