page_title: Robert Heindel
section_title: Early life and career
hierarchical_section_title: Robert Heindel / Early life and career
caption_attribution_description: English: Painting of ballet dancers by Robert Heindel
context_page_description: Robert Heindel was an American painter, illustrator, and stage designer best known for his paintings of dance and performing arts. Heindel created over 1300 paintings and drawings of dance and performing arts during a twenty-five year period in the late twentieth century. He was described as the best painter of dance of his time.
  Well-known patrons of dance and the performing arts collected Heindel's works and sponsored his exhibitions, including Princess Diana, Princess Margaret, Princess Caroline, Prince and Princess Takamado, and Andrew Lloyd Webber. His works are found in the permanent collections of museums including the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, the National Portrait Gallery, London, the Norman Rockwell Museum, and the Glasgow Museums.
context_section_description: Heindel was born in Toledo, Ohio, the oldest of three adopted sons, to working-class parents Charlotte and Robert Heindel. His mother worked at the local Willy's Jeep factory assembling carburetors. His father was an engineer and piano player. Heindel began painting at an early age, encouraged by his parents, though especially his mother who believed him to be gifted. Heindel enrolled at the Famous Artists School at 16, eventually becoming one of its most celebrated graduates.
  Heindel married Rosalie (Rose) Petres in 1959. They had three sons: Toby (born February 28, 1960, died September 20, 1990), Troy (born December 1, 1961) and Todd (born September 7, 1966). Heindel often signed his paintings with the symbol of his wife Rose.
  During his 25-year illustration career Heindel was friends with and competed against the best illustrators of the late twentieth century, including Bob Peak, Bernie Fuchs, Mark English, Fred Otnes, and Alan E. Cober. Together, they created an annual educational event called the Illustrator's Workshop to teach young illustrators about the illustration business.
  Heindel reached the top of the illustration business in the early 1980s, his work having appeared in nearly every major print magazine such as ‘Sports Illustrated’, ‘TV Guide’, ‘Ladies Home Journal’, ‘Redbook’, the ‘Saturday Evening Post’, and ‘Time’ magazine. Heindel's ‘Time’ magazine cover of Daniel Ellsberg resides in the permanent collection of The Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery. In 2011, he was posthumously inducted into the Illustrators Hall of Fame. While Heindel benefited from advances in photography and publishing, he foresaw the impact technology would ultimately have on the commercial illustration business. Heindel was known to comment to students that they needed to be prepared for a change in the illustration business, comparing 20th century illustrators to West Virginia coal miners. At the height of his illustration career in the 1980s, Heindel pivoted into fine art; instead of painting American football players for ‘Sports Illustrated,’ he began to paint dancers, something he had wanted to do since first seeing the Royal Ballet's Rudolph Nureyev and Margot Fonteyn dance ‘Paradise Lost’ in 1962.
caption: Two Dancers, 1975, Oil on canvas
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