Robert Risko was born outside Pittsburgh, and attended Kent State University. After spending a few summers in Provincetown drawing caricatures on the street, he moved to New York City. There he became an illustrator for top magazines.

He was first discovered by Andy Warhol who published Risko's work in the pages of Interview magazine starting in 1978. Since then, Risko's graphic caricatures have appeared in almost every magazine including as well as on book jackets, video covers and CD packages such as the Capitol Sings composer series and HBO's Comedy Club series.

In 1993 he had a one man show in the windows of Barney's Seventh Avenue which stopped New Yorkers in their tracks to guess the names of more than 150 portraits by Risko which had been commissioned throughout the 70s and 80s by various magazines.

His work appears in such magazines as Vanity Fair, Rolling Stone. The Risko Book (2000) is a collection of his caricatures from the past twenty years. Currently he is designing the characters for the upcoming Curious Pictures animated TV show "Hey Joel."