Born Riverton SA 1944 and raised on a farm Robert is a self-taughtartist. He won the inaugural residential AME Bale Art Scholarship, Melbourne 1969–73. Since then he has made a living as a painter-sculptor.

He has won many prizes including the Doug Moran Portrait Prize 1990; the inaugural Fleurei Landscape Prize. Robert Hanaford has been selected twenty times for the Archibald and won the Viewers Prize on three occasions. He has had many exhibitions in Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney since 1970, including retrospectives at Carnick Hill SA 2006.

He has painted many portrait commissions throughout Australia and painted the Centenary of Federation painting for Parliament House in 2003. Robert now lives, paints and sculpts with his wife Alison at Riverton SA.