Roberts Howard attended The School of The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. He operated The Studio for Illustration, he now operates a busy portrait studio. During that forty year period he illustrated numerous books for several publishers. The Sakura Company sponsored an exhibition of his work in five cities in Japan.
DC Heath, Lothrop Lee and Shepard, McGraw-Hill and Crowell-Collier have all published books of his illustrations. He has illustrated and designed book covers for Little Brown, Houghton Mifflin, Allyn Bacon, Avon Books, Ballantine Books, Berkely Books and Dell; these covers number in the hundreds.
Howard's executive portraits are a mainstay of his practice with corporate clients; Apollo Computer, Bank of Boston, BASF, Coca-Cola, Codex, Compugraphic, Converse, Daisy Mfg., Data General, Digital, Filene's, Fisher-Price, Gillette, Heublein, Honeywell Computer, John Hancock Insurance, Jordan Marsh, Lotus, Nynex, Ocean Spray, Papa Gino, Prime Computer, Reebok, Sony, St.Regis Paper and Wang.
He wrote and illustrated The Illustrators Bible, the top-selling definitive sourcebook of illustrator's techniques, published by Watson-Guptill. He wrote Gouache For Illustration.