Rob Nilsson, born Robin Nelson in northern Wisconsin in 1939, is an American painter, poet and filmmaker. Although he is best known for his films, painting has been part of his work from an early age: he began to paint during a year away from school, while working on Swedish freighters and hitchhiking through Europe.
Later, in Africa, he spent a period writing and painting on an island off the coast of Cameroon, then called Fernando Pó and now known as Malabo. There he exhibited his paintings at the Ayuntamiento in Santa Isabel, capital of the former Spanish Equatorial Guinea.
His poetry earned recognition, including a prize from the American Academy of Poets for the poem “From a Refugee of Tristan Da Cunha”, and his poems were later gathered in a book that collects much of his creative life. As a filmmaker he directed Northern Lights (1979), which won the Camera d’Or at Cannes, and the 9 @ Night Film Cycle, a set of nine feature films. His legacy spans these disciplines: painting runs alongside his film career, although little public documentation of his paintings survives.