Robert Warner

Robert Warner was an ever-present figure at the South Street Seaport Museum, where he kept shop at Bowne & Co. for 25 years; in the West Village, where he rented on Barrow Street and worked in his studio on West 10th Street; and internationally, where he maintained a robust roster of mail art correspondence across the world. 

His story starts in Geneva, New York, where a high school photography assignment found him in an eyeglass grinding factory, taking black and white portraits of the workers. These workers would become his colleagues, as he became enthralled with the world of eyewear. This love took him to San Francisco, California, where he worked in a variety of boutique shops until returning to New York in the early 1980’s as an Optician on Madison Avenue for Morgenthal Fredericks. Alongside eyeglasses, Warner was a collector of objects and ephemera, and a creator of window displays from vintage luggage, and paper ephemera for the Morganthall Frederic storefronts.

In 1988, Warner began corresponding and creatively collaborating with the American artist Ray Johnson (1927-1995). After the artist's death, Warner began his chapter as a printer when he walked into Bowne & Co., Stationers in 1995 to buy recipe cards. 

Artist profile image: Robert Warner, 2016. South Street Seaport Museum Archive.