Robert Huff exhibit at Carol Jazzar Gallery.

It’s with great sadness to report here the death last Friday of Robert Huff, a remarkable artist, teacher, mentor and human being, whose passing will leave a void in the art world. Those who came into his orbit learned to appreciate art, and more importantly, life, with greater gusto.

In his artwork, he was always influenced by the land around him, highly sensitive to the destruction that man has wrought on it but also to its inherent beauty, the kind that inspires on a daily basis. He lovingly and painstakingly crafted his sculptures, made from bronze and wood, to reflect the man-made and natural shapes and confluences that make up our contemporary environment. Some wooden collages with spotted colored objects would hang from walls, while bronze sculptures with delicate curves and smooth lines stood alone, all of them perfected to a tee.

Huff’s infectious nature lent itself naturally to teaching, and in the late 1960s he started working as a professor at what was then Miami-Dade Community College South Campus in Kendall, where he would mentor many an artist who cover the walls of galleries today. He later became chairman of the art department of Miami Dade College.

Robert Huff.

A native of Michigan and a great lover of the outdoors, Huff and his wife Barbara Young began to spend time in the Appalachian mountains in the last decade, where the specific light of those distinct ridges, and the mining that has gouged them almost beyond recognition, would be inspiration for his later works. In a 2012 solo show at the Carol Jazzar Gallery, his textured wooden painting-sculptures revealed black mounds and miners’ spotlights invading the landscape, with an occasional sun peeping through from the deep chasms or the dust-filled air.

Light somehow always emerged, as it did with the man himself, who always had a smile in his eyes and encouraging words for those continuing in the art-making tradition that emphasized real craftsmanship and dedication to the process and the result, and an appreciation for what art brings to life.