Robert M. Place is an internationally known visionary artist, whose award winning works, in painting, sculpture, and jewelry, have been displayed in galleries and museums in America, Europe, and Japan and graced the covers and pages of numerous books and publications. He is the designer, illustrator, and coauthor of The Alchemical Tarot and The Angels Tarot, which have received international acclaim. He is designer, illustrator, and author of the award winning The Tarot of the Saints, The Buddha Tarot and The Vampire Tarot. He is the author of The Tarot: History, Symbolism, and Divination, which Booklist has said, "may be the best book ever written on that deck of cards decorated with mysterious images called the tarot." He is the author of Astrology and Divination, Magic and Alchemy, and Shamanism written for the Mysteries, Legends, and Unexplained Phenomena series. He has also created illustrations and authored articles for numerous books and magazines.
Robert has conducted lectures and workshops on the Tarot in education centers in the United States and Europe, including the Open Center, Omega Institute, The New York Tarot Festival and The Reader's Studio in New York, The World Tarot Congress in Chicago, The Southeastern Regional Tarot Festival in Florida, The Third International Conference of the Association for Esoteric Studies in Charleston, The Museo Dei Torocchi in Riola, Italy, and the Craft and Folk Art Museum in Los Angeles. He is the curator of the Fool's Journey, a Tarot Exhibition at the Los Angeles Craft and Folk Art Museum. He and his work have appeared on A&E, the Discovery Channel, and the Learning Channel, the TV series Moonlight and Monk and were included in a documentary on vampires on Animal Planet. He was honored with the privilege of cutting the ribbon at the grand opening of The Tarot Museum in Riola, Italy, in 2007 and his recreation of a historic 15th century woodcut Tarot is included in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.