Meltzer received a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Bachelor of Fine Arts) degree from Southern Methodist University (SMU), and a Master of Fine Arts (Master of Fine Arts) degree from University of Hawaii. He also attended the Art Students League of New York and the Jean Morgan School of Artist Meltzer also attended the School for Art Studies, where he learned techniques from artists Robert Benney and Sol Wilson.
Robert H. Meltzer was a native of New York, born in New Rochelle, New York on October 18, 1921. He began his career in 1932 by apprenticing himself to New York-based illustrators including Hunter Barker, Edward Joseph Dreany, and Charles Ross Kinghan in their studios on Division Street in New Rochelle, New New York
After volunteering for military service in the United States. Navy in 1938, Meltzer served in the Pacific Theatre during World World War II on various submarines including the Salmon-Class Snapper and Sargo-Class Seadragon. Following World World War II, Meltzer was recalled to active duty in the Navy as a combat artist during the Korean Action.
At the latter, he learned sketching and composition from newspaper and battlefield sketch artist Wallace Morgan.
One of the greatest influences in Meltzer’s artistic development was muralist-lithographer-painter-art historian Doctor Louis Henri Jean Charlot. Charlot was a master teacher at the University of Hawaii when Meltzer was completing his Master of Fine Arts. Meltzer was impressed by Charlot’s emphasis on scholarship, which led to Meltzer’s artistic focus on Native American, American Southwest, and rural California landscape subjects.
Meltzer learned weightlifting from both Olympian gold and silver-medal holder and Mr. World and Mr. Universe title-holder Tommy Kono and Doctor Peter T. George, captain of the 1952 (Helsinki) and 1956 (Melbourne) United States. Olympic Weightlifting teams.
Meltzer painted portraits of both Kono and George.
The George portrait, which depicted Doctor George in his Olympic jacket and tie, was destroyed in a fire. During his weightlifting period in Hawaii, Meltzer served as a volunteer lifeguard at Ala Moana Beach in Honolulu. Meltzer moved from Hawaii to California in 1959.
In 1967, Meltzer was elected to the American Watercolor Society.
From the mid-1970s until his death in 1987, Meltzer was an important influence in bringing professional watercolor instruction to students throughout the United States. Through Crafton Hills College in Yucaipa, California, Meltzer ran a series of watercolor seminars which included as instructors Philosophy Dike (1906–1990), Dong Kingman (1911–2000), Millard Owen Sheets (1907–1989), Robert East. Wood (1926–1999), and other noted American watercolorists.
Meltzer’s works are included in the collections of the Edward-Dean Museum in Cherry Valley, California. San Bernardino City Hall, San Bernardino, California.
And the United States Naval Archives, Washington, District of Columbia Meltzer’s work is also part of the Smithsonian Museum’s collection of wooden Easter Eggs commissioned by the White House in 1981.
Meltzer received a telegram informing him that he was among 70 American artists, including Andy Warhol and “Peanuts” cartoonist Charles M. Schulz, invited to “paint or decorate wooden egg replicas” for an Easter display at the White House. Meltzer’s two submissions captured cattle grazing in the pasturelands of Beaumont, California and a herd of horses from Banning, California.
Meltzer was a member of SMU’s championship football squads in 1947 and 1948.
