Printmaker and painter Robert Roy Malone was born in McColl, South Carolina, on August 8, 1933. He attended Furman University and the University of North Carolina where he received his BA in 1955, and the University of Chicago, where he received his MFA in 1958. Following this he undertook postgraduate work at the University of Iowa.

Malone served as Head of Printmaking at Southern Illinois University, Edwardsvile, where he also founded the SIUE Print Edition series, building a collection of works by printmaking students of the University to be donated to University Museum. He was Professor Emeritus at the SIUE College of Arts and Sciences' Department of Art and Design from 1970 to 2001. He also worked at Wesleyan College (GA), and West Virginia University, Morgantown (WV).

In addition to his personal art career and teaching, Malone wrote several papers and books on the subject of printmaking, including "Contemporary American Printmaking," (1999), a collaborative work with Zuo Yingzue and Scott Wampler. Malone's work is included in the permanent collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and the Wichita Art Museum, Kansas, among other. He exhibited nationally and internationally. He died on February 24, 2018.