An artist as far back as he can remember, Robert Kinkead won his first artistic accolade as a high school senior by capturing a third place in an all-city art exhibition without distinction as to age or professional standing.
 
In the year 1999 and the first two years of the new millennium, he took the opportunity to show his work for the first time since high school. Noteworthy is the fact that three particular showings in three consecutive years had enormous exposure to the public.  In 1999’s exhibition, it was estimated that seventy-five hundred people had direct access to and stopped to view the ninety-six-entry showing over one weekend.  Robert Kinkead’s work titled “Eighty-sixed” was awarded second place by the judges, but Best of Show in the People’s Choice category.  Ironically, the same work two years later in the 2002 exhibition of one hundred and twenty-six qualified entries captured the identical awards with an estimated attendance of over ten thousand viewers in a week’s time.  In 2001, the year between, his entry “Fly’s Time” took a third place by the judges and another of his pieces titled “You, me and the Cre” garnered Best of Show once again in the People’s Choice category. Again there was a pass-along audience of approximately ten thousand people over the eight days of the exhibit’s duration.  Three consecutive years, three Best of Show blue ribbons by vote of the visitors because each was given a ballot upon entering the exhibit and asked to rank his three favorite works.

The artist is not so much concerned with finding favor with the “art world” though he evidently does. He is rather more interested in gaining the enthusiasm and acceptance of ordinary people for obviously, the masses make up his market base, not a judges' panel.  Moreover, having sprung from an illustrator’s background, he has always attempted to communicate a strong message, not merely a visual statement to the senses.  As such, he is anxious for his public to point at, to ponder and to perceive his intent.  In all of his works, the clues are both striking and understated, but always there for the inquiring eye and the persevering mind.