ALBUQUERQUE, NM.- Artist and teacher Robert Heinecken, 74, died in Albuquerque. He was often thought of as a photographer, yet he rarely used a camera. He was more correctly seen as an image manipulator and scavenger who, along with John Baldessari, Ed Ruscha, and Douglas Huebler, had been an important influence on the current generation of artists.

Robert Heinecken was a native of Denver, Colorado. He studied printmaking at UCLA, where he received bachelor and master's degree. Combining printmaking, drawing, and sculpture with photography, Heinecken used photography's "illusion of reality" to address issues related to the popular media, consumerism, common sexual concerns of the 1960s, and the Vietnam War.