Robert Foose was a major figure in Kentucky art in the 1970s and ’80s, both as an award-winning artist and as a teacher at the University of Kentucky. His atmospheric watercolors are heavily collected. He was also a printmaker and ran the Buttonwood Press. The Art Museum at the University of Kentucky honored Foose with a retrospective in 2002. His works are in the collections of the Speed Art Museum and the Owensboro Museum of Fine Art, among others. According to an online source, Foose had more than 50 one-man shows and more than 100 group shows.