Born in The Bronx, New York City, in 1933, Julian Robles has been living and painting in Taos, New Mexico, since 1968. He is dedicated to recording the ceremonials of the New Mexico and Arizona Indians before their valued rituals are lost. "I find it exciting to capture the life and color of an Indian ritual," he declares. "It's exhilarating to paint the air around the bronze head of a Pueblo Indian."

His artist mother recognized the seeds of Robles' talent and focus when he was a young child. Robles became an avid student of art at his high school in Jersey City, New Jersey, and went on to study at the Pratt Institute in New York City, eventually serving as a technical illustrator in the U.S. Air Force from 1953 to 1958. Posts in Cheyenne, Wyoming, and Amarillo, Texas, allowed Julian to take frequent painting trips to New Mexico, prompting his eventual relocation to the area. After military service, Robles remained in Amarillo to teach and to paint portraits until 1961 when he returned to New York City to work as a commercial artist. He attended classes at the Arts Student League and the National Academy of Design in New York until his final move to Taos where he was a founding member of the Taos Six, along with Rod Goebel, Walt Gonske, Ray Vinella, Robert Daughters, and Ron Barsano.

Like the Taos founders before him, Robles finds a magical quality in the southwest landscape with its striking contrast of desert and mountains and the variety of clouds against perfect blue skies. As Robles says, "The combination of all these elements make living and painting in northern New Mexico next to high drama for the painter."

At some Indian ceremonials, photography and sketching are not permitted so Robles memorizes the details and sketches them in his studio, where he has a collection of artifacts. To compose the details for a painting, he re-creates the ritual as if he were actually a participant. In a way, his approach is the same as an actor's in making a role come alive. As a result of his first-hand experience and personalized involvement, his canvases glow with a warm, inviting light, and his colors are the vibrant purple, red, and turquoise of Indian ceremonial costumes.

Julian Robles has won numerous awards for his penetrating insights into the culture and beauty of the Southwest, not only for his oil paintings but also for his pastels and woodblock prints. His honors include the gold medal of the Webber-Costello Award for portrait painting at the National Pastel Society Show, New York, in 1985, as well as many invitations and awards at invitational shows at the Cowboy Hall of Fame in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, and the National Western Artists show in Lubbock, Texas. Robles continues to work at his studio in Taos, but spends much of his time painting on location throughout the Southwest.

"The world needs all the encouragement it can get from the visionaries, the dreamers and the impressionists…A painting or drawing should be an enhanced version of reality and not a sharp-edged duplicate of it. It should have a personal touch, the interpretation of an artist's eye, his hand and inspiration."

These words reflect the artistic ideas of Julian Robles, known for his New Mexico subjects of Indian figures, often with ceremonial dress, pueblo scenes and landscapes. Occasionally he does celebrity portraits. His mediums are pastel, oil, charcoal and woodblock prints.

Although his studio is in Taos, he spends much of his time painting on location. Born in 1933, Robles received art training in New York City at the Pratt Institute, the National Academy of Art and Design and the Art Students League. Robles moved west in the middle of his career, but his work continues to be admired in the East.

Bob Trotter, New York art critic wrote of Robles work: "His figures exist in space, as we do, without the black edging of pre-drawn line. The result is scholarly as well as artistic in its definition of a human condition."

Robles has been featured in numerous publications including Southwest Art magazine, October 1974, and July, 1975; Contemporary Western Artists by Samuels and Who's Who in American Art.

His affiliations are: Founding Member of the "Taos Six", Pastel Society of America, Founding Member of the National Western Artists, and Pastel Society of the Southwest.

He has also won many awards. Oil painting, Valdez Lane, won Best of Show and became the official poster of the 1982 Western Artists Exhibition. Sacred Macaw of the Pueblo, one of his Indian figure paintings, highlighted the benefit sale hosted by Armand Hammer and the Prince of Wales for the Armand Hammer United World College.

Robles work has been exhibited at the Philbrook Museum in Tulsa, Oklahoma: The Hermitage Museum in Norfolk, Virginia; The Museum of the American West in Houston, Texas; and The Cowboy Hall of Fame in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.