The child of schoolteachers, Robert Overman Hodgel was born in Mankato, Kansas in 1922. In adolescence, he was just as interested in running for the track team as he was in being an artist, but his path changed forever in 1939 when he met the renowned Regionalist painter John Steuart Curry. Hodgel visited Topeka while Curry was in residence completing his iconic murals for the Kansas State Capitol building, and Curry hired the teenage Hodgel as an apprentice. Although interrupted by his time in the military during World War II, Hodgel worked closely with Curry for the next six years until Curry’s death in 1946. He cited Curry as his biggest mentor and influence, fundamentally shaping who he was as an artist.
Hodgell completed bachelors and masters degrees at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, where he studied printmaking under Alfred Sessler, another noted Regionalist. For the next several decades, Hodgel moved frequently and found work where he could get it– teaching at his alma mater, the Des Moines Art Center, the University of Illinois, and Eckerd College, among others. He also worked as an illustrator, creating illustrations for four children's books in addition to Playboy magazine. Hodgell’s work can be found in the permanent collections of the Library of Congress, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Des Moines Art Center, Joslyn Art Museum, the Bergstrom Museum, the Ringling Museum of Art, and the St. Petersburg Museum of Fine Arts.
