Robert Paul (Bob) Byerley (September 4, 1941 – March 14, 2019).

Bob touched the lives of several generations and strangers to him until they fell in love with his paintings. He had a vision of a kinder and gentler world where children were supported, encouraged, and loved so they would grow up to be creative. Bob would often reminisce about his childhood when his mother Edith would expect him home for dinner after exploring the streets of Kansas City, Missouri as a young boy. He talked about the sound of the screen door when he left for the day and the freedom of taking the streetcar to the dump or a construction site. He earned a master’s degree in art from the University of Missouri, Columbia but his first plans were to become a doctor and make his parents proud. He never thought that the smell of the painting materials would alter his plans and allow him to become a part of art history. He then had to have a conversation with his parents about how their son was not going to be a doctor but an artist.

Bob went on to teach art at Pittman Jr. High in Raytown Missouri until his first one-person art show. The Barns Gallery hosted the event where he sold every one of his original paintings causing his resignation from teaching. He was married to Judith Smith in 1963, and together they had Christine and David. Bob and Judy divorced in the 80s, and he later married Alice Smith in 1989. His painting career began to grow quickly in the 1990s after a successful showing at Art Expo New York. Bob was able to travel the world as people celebrated his talent and collected his originals and reproductions. He received several awards including best of show and the Hubble award. Bob’s work was shown in an estimated 7,000 galleries at its peak and can still be seen around the world. He loved to work with his models who were usually children. He laughed and supported how they would often take the photo shoot in a different direction than he planned.

The family was Bob’s number one priority in life. He loved his kids and grandchildren which was proven by the number of times he attended their events and planned family vacations. Bob was often found under a pile of kids with ice cream bars watching some kids show. They all knew him as “Papa,” and he loved every minute of that title. Bob would take them all around the metro area to museums, farms, and attractions. He also loved family trips to the Missouri State Fair in August where he enjoyed all the fair foods and people. Bob never truly grew up, and the kids all knew it and loved their time with “Papa.”

Most people do not know that Bob was a sharpshooter in the ROTC and could play the piano, guitar, banjo, ukelele, and harmonica. Bob was also a master woodworker and sculptor. Bob loved his paintings so much that he would make crates for each one as part of his service to whoever purchased the original. He saw those that owned the originals as a select group of close friends that shared that moment with him.

Bob is preceded in death by his mother and father Bob and Edith, his first wife Judy, and his son David. Bob is survived by his wife Alice, daughter Chrissy and her husband Steven, step-daughter Randa and her husband Curt, daughter-in-law Maria, step-son Kevin and his wife Emily, his grandchildren: Hannah, Chelsea, Annika, Alice, Lelia, Collin, Zachary, Jacob, and Kaitlynn. Great-grandchildren: Connor and Eileen.

Source: Byerley Art Website (obituary)

Submitted by: Fred McMcraw

Bob Byerley is a realist oil painter of nostalgic Americana. Born in Kansas City, Missouri in 1941, he now (2003) lives with his wife in a large Victorian home in the Harry S. Truman historic district of Independence, Missouri. The quiet, shady, tree lined streets and old brick sidewalks where children still ride homemade scooters are backdrops and ever inspiring theatrical sets on which Byerley creates the themes for his paintings.

Educated in the Old Masters Tradition of painting, receiving his B.A. and M.A. degrees in art from the University of Missouri, he rigidly defends the concepts of strong compositional design and content in his paintings. "Content," Byerley explains, "has to do with the truths of life that we find around us. Truths can not be artificially staged, affected, conjured up, created, or invented to be sympathetic or trendy in a painting. They occur simply, spontaneously and without effort in the moments on canvas."

"Many of the ideas I express in my paintings," Byerley goes on to say, "came from my childhood before television. I grew up in the middle of the city in a house that was, strangely enough, surrounded by twenty blocks of dense woods; each season, those woods were the magic place where our childhood imaginations ran totally free. We dug swimming pools that we ambitiously planned to open for next summer, we built the highest tree houses kids had ever built, we felled trees and filled rabbit holes in order to create five cent a turn bicycle obstacle courses, and we collected. We collected marvelous things. We collected castaway items from the dump that became elaborate scooters and push cars, forts, lemonade stands, airplanes, rafts, spook houses and miniature golf courses. I remember and love those times and that is what I choose to paint."

Byerley continues: "In order for an artist to get his idea across or communicate with the viewer he must use universally recognized symbols in his paintings, symbols that all viewers can relate to and understand. Problems occur with some art, when the painter makes up symbols that he may understand but the viewer does not. This often occurs when the artist is working in an abstract or non-representational mode. It's much like a person trying to read a great novel, written in a foreign language that he does not understand. The material is there, but it is incomprehensible to the reader. My symbols are the realistic interpretations of children's faces, which are universal." Therein lie the reasons that Byerley's paintings have enjoyed worldwide acceptance and popularity. The smile of a child is understood around the world.

Source: World Wide Art

Bob Byerley (1941- 2019), spent his entire childhood in Kansas City, Missouri. He was an only child. His mother was a piano teacher and began teaching Bob to play at the age of five: When he was six years old he performed his first one-man concert. Throughout his childhood, he continued his musical education. He also showed a keen interest in drawing. His musical endeavors were enthusiastically encouraged, his drawing interests, not.

After high school, Bob decided to enter college, not as a music major, but as a pre-med student. He attended the University of Missouri at Columbia and in his junior year he was required to take three credit hours of fine arts for his pre-med degree. He signed up for a three-hour “Introduction to Art” class, and when he walked into the art building, saw the paintings, and smelled the turpentine, he knew he was home. He loved the art and after one semester, made the hardest phone call to his parents that he had ever had to make; “Mom, Dad, I’ve decided not to be a doctor, I’m going to be an artist! Silence----------”.

Bob went on to receive his Bachelors and his Master's Degree in Art from the University of Missouri in Columbia. After graduating, he taught painting and drawing at the University and also at Missouri Western College in St. Joseph, Missouri.

At the age of thirty, Bob quit teaching and began painting full-time. His primary focus, for many years, was still-life; still-lives rendered in a very detailed, fool-the-eye realistic style. In the late 1980's he began to paint children as the center of interest in his work and in that particular genre, he found success. Bob is now internationally known for his realistic portrayals of children in nostalgic settings; settings that reflect his vision of a “kinder and gentler” childhood.

He and his wife Alice, have four grown children, eight grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren. Alice is their business manager and an outstanding painter in her right. They now live in Lee’s Summit, Missouri. Bob’s work is represented in many beautiful collections, and his work can be seen in thousands of galleries throughout the world.

Source: Byerley Art website

Submitted by: Fred McCraw

The following is from Fred McCraw, Art Writer:

The Kansas City Star reported in a Sunday Star Magazine article that Mr. Byerley was born in 1941 in Kansas City, Missouri.

While his early paintings are noted for their representational realism, they paradoxically were unusually surrealist as well. Mr. Byerley used vivid textural representations of materials (leather, lace, chipping and peeling paint, wrinkled cloth etc.) to achieve such effects.

His children paintings continue that approach but with the added effect of imagined surreal childhood memories made real by the artist's use of strong textural detail.

Bob Byerley, master of "trompe l'oeil", is known for his super-realistic interpretations of Americana and surrealist themes.

In his works the eye is introduced to new horizons as his treatment of "trompe l'oeil" is taken beyond any previous interpretations. The attention to extreme detail produces lace painted by each thread; shimmering crystal; dew drops on flowers; weathered woods, not to mention portraits that appear to live!

This artist's oil paintings inhabit a sense of drama, heightened by superb lighting and the introduction of cherished memories to stimulate all who view his paintings in person.

The intricacy of his work restricts the number of paintings Byerley can complete within a year. His dedication to painting begins with eight hours or more, five to seven days a week. Byerley's devotion to making each painting better than the last has sparked continuing interest by collectors.

Byerley received a Bachelor of Science in Education and a Master of Art in Art from the University of Missouri in Columbia in 1965. He taught junior high school, high school and college until sales of his paintings demanded his full attention in 1970.

He has had numerous one-man shows around the United States. His paintings are in many collections.

Artist statement:

"I believe that in every great painting, sculpture, literary work or piece of music, there are certain basic truths.

In painting that truth can be the turn of a head, the sunlight caressing a hand, the movement of a graceful line or the combination of items that gently return you to the pleasant memories of the past. In life those truths happen simply, quietly, and naturally. They cannot be contrived, staged, faked or manipulated.

I use realism as my vehicle to convey my idea or message to the viewer and as an invitation to share with me those truths I have discovered."