Robert Pruitt (b. 1975, Houston, Texas) received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Texas Southern University (2000) and a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Texas at Austin (2003). His life-size portraits of Black figures incorporate material references to hip hop, science fiction, comic books, African artistic forms, and African American culture, in order to explore identity and further disclose a radical past, present, and future for his subjects. Pruitt was awarded Studio Museum in Harlem’s Joyce Alexander Wein Artist Prize in 2022, which recognizes and honors the artistic achievements of an African American artist who demonstrates great innovation, promise, and creativity. Additionally, in 2022, Venus Williams selected Pruitt to create her portrait for the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., as part of the institution’s Portrait of a Nation Award. Art in Embassies worked with Pruitt as he created Forever’s People, a four-panel drawing, seven feet high by twenty feet long, for permanent display in the U.S. Embassy in Harare, Zimbabwe. His drawing Be of Our Space World is part of the Art in Embassies permanent collection at the U.S. Embassy in Abuja, Nigeria. Additionally, he participated in artist panel discussions in Pretoria, Johannesburg, and Cape Town, South Africa.
