Robert James Baxter, draughtsman, painter, printmaker and educator, was born on 30 November 1933 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He received his B.S. in art in 1956, and his M.S. in 1959 and his M.F.A. in 1960 from the University of Wisconsin at Madison. While at UW-Madison, Baxter studied with Aaron Bohrod and John Wilde.

Baxter relocated to San Diego, California in the early 1960s and began teaching at San Diego State University in 1962. In 1969, he took a sabbatical to Rome and decided to remain in Italy, living there for a number of years. He eventually returned to Southern California and was Professor of Art at San Diego State University until 1973. As a printmaker, Baxter worked with the Workshop of Ernest F. de Soto and Editions Press, both located in San Francisco.

Baxter received Pollack-Krasner Foundation grants in 2000 and 2005. He was elected to the National Academy of Design in 1993 and was elevated to Academician in 1994. He was awarded a Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Grant in 1972 and the Henry Clay Hofheimer award from the Norfolk Museum of Arts and Sciences in 1963.

The work of Robert James Baxter is represented in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois; the Art Center, Kettering University, Flint, Michigan; the Weatherspoon Art Museum, University of North Caroline, Greensboro; the Bates College Museum of Art, Lewiston, Maine; the Chazen Museum of Art; University of Wisconsin Madison; the Currier Museum of Art, Manchester, New Hampshire; the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the National Academy of Design, New York; the Instituto Nazionale Per La Grafica, Rome; the McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, Texas; the Frye Art Museum, Seattle, Washington; and the Krannert Art Museum, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.