Paul Robbert: The Art of Papermaking and Life
Paul Robbert was dedicated to art from a very young age. His talents ranged from painting to printmaking and to the art form to which he dedicated much of the last thirty years namely papermaking.
In 1957 he was hired to serve on the Western Michigan University art faculty. He remained a professor of drawing, printmaking and papermaking for forty-one years. He set-up the printmaking department and was instrumental in establishing papermaking into the curriculum. Robbert’s award-winning artwork was exhibited across the country and known in many parts of the world. He was part of the Paper Art ’87 Convention in the Netherlands as a guest artist at the Jan Van Eyck Akademie in Maastricht, Netherlands.
Paul Robbert was an important trailblazer in the development of handmade papermaking in the United States. One of the unique aspects of Robbert’s art was that he made his own paper mill and created new processes to form paper. At that time in this country papermaking was a lost art and much of the process was experimental. He was an innovator in vacuum formed paper that created a more sculptural effect. Paul found new and creative ways to retrofit ordinary found objects into new equipment for making paper. |