Robert Grüttner was born in New York City in the late sixties. He grew up in a world filled with art museums, comic books, cartoons and toys. At the age of ten he nabbed his mother’s paints and created his first oil painting –– a rendition of the cover of the Marvel comic book "Spiderman vs. the Hulk."

He was a teaching assistant for the art department and Vice President of the Art Club in his High School days and later attended Florida State University School of Fine Arts where he graduated with a Bachelor's degree in Studio Arts.

Upon arriving in San Francisco in 1989 he pursued a career as a graphic designer. During the mid-nineties he traveled and worked in Europe, including being an election supervisor in post-war Bosnia and Kosovo. Sketches of his travels are presented on his website. Having created several paintings for commercial uses he desired to start expressing his personal vision through painting. His passion for painting became obsessive as a new style emerged. These new paintings integrated heavy applications of modeling paste and acrylic gels along with bits of toys and found materials to create a three dimensional painting.

Potential paintings are everywhere – old sketches, photos, art history, religious icons, pop culture – and so he paints daily in his San Francisco studio and continues his work as a freelance graphic designer. In addition he co-hosts a popular San Francisco based cooperative figure-drawing group that celebrates it's 8th anniversary this year.