Robert W. Richards had a successful career as a freelance illustrator for newspapers, haute couture fashion designers, and cosmetic companies before he decided to begin drawing men for the burgeoning crop of gay male magazines in the 1970s, such as Stallion, Honcho, and Playguy. Eventually, Robert began creating large-scale pencil on vellum drawings of gay porn stars, as well as interviewing his subjects. This body of work, spanning four decades, became a phenomenally successful exhibition, entitled "Gods of Erotica" at the Leslie-Lohman Gay Art Foundation in New York's Soho in 2003. Roberts's triptych of Peter Berlin was the first work from "Gods of Erotica" to sell, within minutes of the exhibition's opening.