Robert Templeton (artist)

Robert Templeton (May 11, 1929 – July 16, 1991) was an American artist. Known for his portrait of former President Jimmy Carter displayed in the National Portrait Gallery's Hall of Presidents, Templeton was very prolific with many high-profile portrait commissions. His work also includes the civil rights collection "Lest we forget...Images of the Black Civil Rights Movement", highlighting seminal figures from the movement.

Robert Templeton was born into a farming family in Iowa on May 11, 1929. Due to the Wall Street crash that year, his childhood was difficult. The family depended on growing their own vegetables, supplemented by his father's wages as a WPA worker, and government rice handouts. Their quality of life improved when his father was entrusted with the management of a farm in Montgomery County, Iowa as a tenant farmer. Templeton later said that all the deprivations of his childhood toughened him rather than defeated him. He began drawing when he was about 11 years old and recalled how he looked forward to the arrival of The Saturday Evening Post with the cover painting by Norman Rockwell, which contributed to his decision to become an artist.

In between school and farming chores he filled his sketchbooks with scenes from the Iowa countryside. His sketches caught the attention of his high school principal, Mary Buffington, who encouraged him to pursue a career in art. He won a National Merit Scholarship, and Buffington helped him to apply to the Kansas City Art Institute.

He was accepted and arrived in Kansas City in 1946 at the age of seventeen. During that year Templeton was awarded the Vanderslice scholarship. Early on Templeton was able to cover his living expenses with portrait commissions. He spent his summers in Colorado, honing his skill in portraiture on the sidewalks of Estes Park.

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