© 2001 Sam Blackman

ROBERT SAUNDERS has been doing commissioned illustration for editorial, publishing, corporate, and advertising clients including many Fortune 500's, since 1981. His work has been recognized by the Society of Illustrators, SILA, Communication Arts, Print, and The Art Directors Club. Additionally he has designed book jackets, corporate identity, direct mail, print collateral, music CD packaging, and web media.

A graduate of Rhode Island School of Design with an MFA degree in Printmaking from Rosary College in Florence, Italy, he has served on the Executive Committee of the Graphic Artists Guild and in its Boston Chapter as Acting President, National Representative, and Editor/Designer of its newsletter. He is an advocate of artist-controlled stock licensing and contract literacy for artists.

Academically, Robert has taught Illustration at Massachusetts College of Art and spoken at New England colleges and trade organizations. A former instructor of drawing, etching, and lithography in the U.S. and Italy, he is profiled in two books on illustration, and has been an editor, copyeditor, and contributor to graphic arts periodicals. His writings cover copyright, contracts, negotiation, and volunteerism. He was moderator for two panels at the Santa Fe Illustration Conference in 2001. In 2004 he gave a lecture at the symposium Ethical Issues of Intellectual Property in the Internet Age sponsored by the consortium of the Colleges of the Fenway. Recently he has developed an audiovisual presentation documenting the piracy of his work and the perils of creating original work in an age of rampant intellectual property theft.

A devotee of jazz, blues, and old-timey music, Robert played abroad professionally for six years and recorded an album of string band music. He performed at ICON 3 in 2003 with The Half-Tones, an all-illustrator jazz/R&B ensemble he co-founded with Joe Ciardiello. He also performs around Boston with a jazz quintet and can often be found bent over a guitar practicing gypsy jazz licks—which is as close as he comes to worshipping a deity. He has a daughter and lives in Brookline, Massachusetts.