Robert Stackhouse, born in 1942 in Bronxville, New York, moved to Polk County, Florida, in 1954 to live with his grandparents at Lundy’s Fish Camp in Auburndale. There, he graduated from Auburndale High School in 1960 and immersed himself in the rhythms of Lake Juliana, rowing, fishing, and observing snakes, alligators, and water moccasins—experiences that profoundly shaped his imagery of "Swimmers and Floaters." Stackhouse earned a B.A. from the University of South Florida in 1965 and an M.A. in studio art from the University of Maryland, College Park, in 1967.
Stackhouse rose to national prominence with his first solo exhibition at Max Hutchinson’s Sculpture Now Gallery in New York in 1976, establishing him as one of the era's leading young sculptors by the 1980s. His work spans monumental sculptures, large-scale watercolors, drawings, and prints, often drawing on nautical themes like ship hulls and skeletal frames, twisted from two-dimensional planes into immersive, site-specific three-dimensional forms made of wood in human proportions. These kinesthetic structures invite viewers to climb, walk through, and inhabit them, evoking the mythic tension between boats and serpents from his Florida youth, as seen in the 2007-2008 retrospective *Swimmers and Floaters* at the Polk Museum of Art.
Among his major works are the 40-foot oak sculpture *Great Rain Snake*, the watercolor *Dragon Fight* (depicting a Viking ship battling a serpent), *Ruby's Heart* (1988, Honolulu Museum of Art), *Russian River Bones* (Oliver Ranch, 1989), *East River Bones* (Long Island City, NY, 1987), *Missouri Shift* (Springfield, MO, 1997), and *Michigan Swell* (Western Michigan University, 1998). He collaborates frequently with artist Carol Mickett, his spouse, on pieces like *Confluence* at the Indianapolis Art Center. His art resides in prestigious collections, including the Art Institute of Chicago, Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Hirshhorn Museum, Philadelphia Museum of Art, and Smithsonian American Art Museum.
A prolific teacher, Stackhouse instructed at the Corcoran School of Art and served as a visiting professor at institutions like the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. With over 70 solo exhibitions worldwide and National Endowment for the Arts fellowships in 1977 and 1991, plus a 2008 Lifetime Achievement Award from the Polk Museum of Art, his archive at USF's Contemporary Art Museum ensures his enduring influence on contemporary sculpture.
