Robert Becker was an intern and editorial assistant at the Paris Review in 1977 when George Plimpton began editing Jean Stein's superb book about Edie Sedgwick. It was the perfect education. Eighteen years old and recently graduated from school, he lived in New York City's East Village. Between the Plimpton office and the demimonde below 14th Street, Robert found himself in the midst of that richest of moments in high and low culture, when music, art, literature and fashion all collided with camp and celebrity.  While he learned some basics from Plimpton, he also took creative writing classes at the New School, shelved books at the Strand, saw every band that played CBGBs or Max's and every opera at the Met from the standing room balconies.

 

Introduced to Andy Warhol at a party in 1980, in November of that year Robert joined the staff of Interview Magazine at the Warhol Factory on Union Square. His first job was assistant to the advertising director but he was soon assigned -- by Fred Hughes, Interview's publisher and President of Warhol Enterprises -- interviews and articles about artists and art.  A few of his stories over the years included interviews with David Salle, Eric Fischl, Gilbert and George, April Gornick, Robert Colescott and Laurie Anderson; articles about John Singer Sargent, Lucien Freud and Purvis Young; and curatorial collaborations with artists such as Jenny Holzer, Donald Baechlor, Futura 2000 and Matt Mullican.

 

For the next six and half years, until the day Warhol died, he continued combing the established and underground art scenes for stories and ideas for the magazine, and introduced Warhol to the younger generation of artists including Keith Haring.  He also wrote a series of pieces about the most influential New York art dealers of the day for Art & Auction Magazine, and reviews for Flash Art.  Miscellaneous articles of his appeared in Manhattan, Inc., Elle, Harper's Bazaar, Art and Antiques, Town and Country, the Paris Review, Conde Nast Traveler and others.

 

In 1987 he moved to London for three years where he continued writing about art and conducted research for his first book.  After returning to New York, Robert completed the biography Nancy Lancaster; Her Life, Her World, Her Art.  Published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1996 it went into seven printings and was excerpted by Town and Country and British Vogue. Nancy Lancaster was reviewed in The New York Times, London Times, the Spectator, the New Yorker Magazine, the Daily Telegraph, Elle, Publishers Weekly, W, the Los Angeles Times, etc.

 

Robert moved to the Hawaiian Islands in 1997.  He began researching and writing about the complicated history of the islands and the devastating evolution from independent kingdom to the fiftieth American state.  Living in Honolulu, he also wrote essays about art, photography and architecture for publications and catalogues, and with great relish took up the sport of Hawaiian kings, surfing. 

 

With his book about Hawaii's history forthcoming, Robert has recently written art reviews for the New Criterion and Hyperallergic.  He also serves at Vice President of the Merwin Conservancy, a non-profit organization dedicated to preserving the house and palm forest belonging to the late poet W.S. Merwin, two time Pulitzer Prize winner and Poet Laureate of the United States under President Obama.  He divides his time between New York and Honolulu.