Michener was born in 1935 in Preston, Minnesota. After receiving an MFA in painting from the University of Minnesota in 1962, Michener immigrated to Canada in 1973, and went on to base his studio and home out of Surrey. He taught at the Vancouver School of Art (now Emily Carr University of Art + Design) until his retirement in 1999, influencing several generations of students, and showed his work across North America and Europe. His art can be found in over 200 collections, including the Canada Council, Vancouver Art Gallery, and the Department of External Affairs, among others. 

Along with his partner Ann Nelson, Michener was a lifelong supporter of the visual art, and contributed to the artistic culture of the Fraser Valley, receiving the Surrey Civic Treasure award in 2020. He was known for large-scale landscape paintings of the local region, painted from an aerial perspective inspired by Eastern visual cultures. Through his work, Michener evinced a profound empathy with nature, portraying the interconnectedness of the land and the creatures that live upon it. Painting both human settlements and the landscape at large from a distance, Michener’s compositions placed and culture on equal symbolic footing.

The Gallery exhibited his work on multiple occasions, including the 1998 solo exhibition “The Gorgeous Gorges” and the two-person exhibition “World Idyll: Robert Michener and Ann Nelson” in 2013. Several works of his may be found in the Gallery’s permanent collection, all of which have received Cultural Property status from the department of Canadian Heritage. 

Bob will be greatly missed.