Robert Hobbs has written widely on modern and contemporary art, including extended essays on David Altmejd, Keith Haring, Richard Jackson, Jonathan Lasker, Robert Longo, Sterling Ruby, Yinka Shonibare, Frank Stella, Tavares Strachan, Kara Walker, Kelley Walker, John Wesley, and Kehinde Wiley, among others. His monographs have focused on such artists as Milton Avery, Alice Aycock, Edward Hopper, Lee Krasner, Mark Lombardi, Robert Motherwell, Beverly Pepper, Richard Pousette-Dart, and Robert Smithson.
Hobbs served a curator for the American (Smithson, 1981) and the Bahamas (Tavares Strachan, 2013) Pavilions at the Venice Biennale and the American Representation at the São Paulo Bienal (Kara Walker, 2002). He has curated exhibitions at major museum in the U.S. and abroad. Academic positions include Associate Professor, Cornell University; long-time Visiting Professor, Yale University; and Thalhimer Endowed Chair, Virginia Commonwealth University.