Robert Guinan (March 14, 1934 – April 3, 2016) was an American painter based in Chicago. The subject matter of his work includes but has not been limited to street performers, musicians, barflies, historical scenes, landscapes and building structures. Lauded in Europe but widely unknown in his native Chicago, Guinan's work reflects a documentary quality that has been compared to "that of the Parisian demi-mondes as chronicled and interpreted by Toulouse-Lautrec." Collections Public collections include Fonds National d’Art Contemporain, Paris; Musée des Beaux-Arts, Lyon; Musée de Grenoble; Musée du dessin et de l’estampe originale, Gravelines; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Sintra Museu de Arte Moderna, Collection Berardo, Sintra, Portugal. Exhibitions Guinan's work has been featured in exhibitions as follows: Group Exhibitions Films Robert Guinan's life and work has been the subject of two films, including the 1995 documentary Division Street U.S.A.: Following Robert Guinan (Frédéric Compain, 52 min, Coproduction Dune, Leapfrog Production, Arte - G.E.I.E.) and the 2006 documentary Robert Guinan, un peintre en marge du rêve américain (Albert Loeb and Nicole Sérès, 48 min, Les Films Lazare) Life and career Guinan was born in 1934 in Watertown, New York. Boyhood fascination with the work of magazine illustrator Herbert Morton Stoops led to an interest in drawing and painting. Because formal art instruction was not offered at Immaculate Heart Academy (IHA), Guinan's mother Dorothy arranged night classes for her son with Mary Morley, an art teacher at Watertown High School. Guinan's first exhibition occurred when he was just 15 at the Watertown library. A critic in the Watertown Daily Times called the show "a most creditable exhibit for an artist of his age and training". It led to annual exhibits of his works through his high school years. Times writer David F. Lane wrote in 1950 that his paintings were "of such character in composition, coloration and brush technique as to definitely forecast a promising future for him in the field of art." He praised the 16-year-old artist's "rare genius for capturing action in tense moments, and in rendering facial expressions which accurately represent the mood and thought of the character." Guinan graduated from IHA in 1951. Living in a YMCA hotel, his first job was as an assistant in a dental lab, constructing false teeth. He enlisted in the Air Force in 1953, after considering a potential Army draft during the Korean War. He served as a radio