After graduating the Minneapolis Art Museum School, Robert Leroy Knudson moved to Arizona. He became an artist of Western scenes and native Americans. His specialty was the ancient culture of the Hopi and the Navajo.

He was featured in the December 1987 issue of Southwest Art Magazine. His works are exhibited by the San Diego Museum of Art, the Museum of Northern Arizona, and the William Penn Memorial Museum. He worked in advertising taught art at the Kachina School of Art in Phoenix.

Knudson summed up his ideas of painting light, "What I try to get in my paintings is the quality of light. Light defines drama and contrast. To me it parallels life, highlights many thoughts about principles of change, survival, eternality. Light sets the mood, the dynamic to any moment on the landscape and suggests a grand theme"...Artist Statement, courtesy Sue Willoughby from "Custom Showcase", 1989.