Wisconsn Artist (print-making); Married to illustrator Nancy Ekholm Burkert Born 1930 in Racine, Wisconsin

Robert Burkert’s early interest in art began close to home with scholarship classes at the Charles A. Wustum Museum of Fine Arts in Racine. His early lithographs were created on an old press in a studio at the museum. His early art teachers were Sylvester and Cherry B. Jerry at the Wustum, and Helen Sawyer at Racine’s Washington Park High School. As a teenager, Burkert was also interested in comic art, and drew a teen oriented comic strip for the Chicago Tribune. As a teen, he also worked as a “ghost” artist on a number of projects for Western Publishing. These influences and interests later led him to the University of Wisconsin-Madison where he studied drawing, painting and printmaking. His art professors included Dean Meeker, Alfred Sessler, John Wilde, Don Anderson, James Watrous and Santos Zingale. While a student there, Burkert won recognition in regional competitive shows. He received his B.S. degree in drawing, painting and printmaking from UW-Madison in 1952 and his M.S. degree in painting and printmaking in 1955.