Rob Rogers

Born in Philadelphia, Rogers cultivated his interest in political cartooning at Oklahoma State University, where he drew cartoons about student issues for the college paper. He continued to hone his craft for The Vista at Central State University (now University of Central Oklahoma), covering the 1980 presidential election. After graduating in 1984 from Carnegie-Mellon University with an MFA in painting, Rogers was hired as staff cartoonist for The Pittsburgh Press. When the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette bought the Press in 1993, Rogers joined the new Post-Gazette.

His work received the 2000 and 2013 Thomas Nast Award from the Overseas Press Club, the 1995 National Headliner Award, and numerous Golden Quills. In 2015 Rogers was awarded the Berryman Award from the National Press Foundation. In 1999 he was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. In 2021, he was named the winner of the 2021 Herblock Prize for editorial cartooning.

Rogers has also been the curator of several national cartoon exhibitions including, Too Hot to Handle: Creating Controversy Through Political Cartoons (2003) and Drawn to the Summit: A G-20 Exhibition of Political Cartoons (2009), both at The Andy Warhol Museum, and Bush Leaguers: Cartoonists Take on the White House (2007) at the American University Museum. More recently, in conjunction with the ToonSeum, Rogers curated Slinging Satire: Editorial Cartooning and the First Amendment (2015) and From MLK to March: Civil Rights in Comics and Cartoons (2016). Rogers is an active member (and past president) of the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists.

In 2009, Rogers celebrated 25 years as a Pittsburgh editorial cartoonist with the release of his book, No Cartoon Left Behind: The Best of Rob Rogers, published by Carnegie Mellon University Press. In 2015, he released a local cartoon collection called, Mayoral Ink: Cartooning Pittsburgh’s Mayors.

Rogers served as board president of the ToonSeum, a cartoon museum in Pittsburgh, from 2007 until 2017.