A Chronicle of Dignity: The Life and Art of Robert Riggs Robert Riggs, a name resonating with quiet power in the landscape of contemporary figurative painting, has dedicated his career to portraying the beauty, resilience, and complexity of African-American life. Born in 1935 in St. Louis, Missouri, Riggs’s artistic journey began not as a pursuit of formal training but as an intrinsic response to the world around him—a world steeped i…