Roger Brown (artist)

Rising Above it All, 1978

For other people named Roger Brown, see Roger Brown (disambiguation).

Roger Brown
Born	James Roger Brown December 10, 1941 Hamilton, Alabama
Died	November 22, 1997 Atlanta, Georgia
Nationality	United States
Education	School of the Art Institute of Chicago
Known for	Painting
Movement	Chicago Imagists

Roger Brown (December 10, 1941 – November 22, 1997, born in Hamilton, Alabama) was an American artist who was a leading member of the Chicago Imagists, a group in the 1960s and 1970s who turned to representational art. His paintings are owned by many of the most important art museums in the US.

He was born in Hamilton and raised in Opelika. He studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, 1962 through 1963 as an undergraduate and 1964 through 1970 as a graduate.

Brown's first art show was with an artist group named "False Image". He credits one of his teachers at the Art Institute, Ray Yoshida, for his help. Yoshida helped him to "put myself into my art", as Brown said. Brown's art has a comic-book style narrative, which is sometimes literally written underneath the image.

Brown donated his three homes and collections to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. His Chicago home exists as the Roger Brown Study Collection, a house museum, archive and special collection of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. His home in New Buffalo, Michigan, designed by his partner, the late modernist architect George Veronda, acts as a faculty and staff retreat and is not open to the public. His home in La Conchita, California, designed by the Chicago architect Stanley Tigerman, was sold by the school and its collection of art placed in storage. The Spartan Trailer that was on his property in La Conchita is as of May 2012 on semi-permanent loan to the Museum of Jurassic Technology in Los Angeles, in honor of the artist's life in southern California.

The houses contain Brown's art collections, including artworks by many notable Chicago Imagists, naive or primitive art, Outsider art, found objects from flea markets, and Brown's original furniture and sketchbooks. Much of this art is arranged in the Salon style, where paintings, sculpture, and artifacts cover every conceivable surface area. This is the way that Brown lived with his art collection. The Study Collection, located in Chicago's Lincoln Park neighborhood, is open to school groups, scholars, and the public by appointment.

During the last 27 years of his life (from 1970 until his death in 1997), Brown was represented by the Phyllis Kind Gallery in Chicago and New York. The estate of Roger Brown is represented by Russell Bowman Art Advisory, Chicago, IL, and DC Moore Gallery, New York. The School of the Art Institute of Chicago holds a large repository of his works through a large gift bestowed by the artist in 1996 and maintains the Roger Brown Permanent Collection and the Roger Brown Estate Collection of Paintings and Prints.

Public Collections

• Akron Museum of Art, Akron, OH
• The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL
• Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
• Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, TX
• Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, TX
• Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.
• Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis, IN
• Los Angeles County Museum, Los Angeles, CA
• Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, Madison, WI
• Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
• Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee, WI
• Montgomery Museum of Art, Montgomery, AL
• Museum Boymans, Rotterdam, Netherlands
• Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA
• Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY
• National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.
• Nelson Atkins Museum of Fine Art, Kansas City, MO
• Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh, Scotland
• Whitney Museum of Art, New York, NY

Solo Exhibitions

• 2012 Roger Brown: This Boy’s Own Story, Sullivan Galleries, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, IL, August 24 – November 10
• 2012 Dual exhibition, Roger Brown: Major Paintings, Russell Bowman Art Advisory, Chicago, IL and Zolla Lieberman Gallery, Chicago, IL, September 7 - October 27
• 2012 Roger Brown: Urban Traumas and Natural Disasters, Springfield Art Museum, Springfield, MO, September 17 – November 13
• 2010 Roger Brown: Calif. U.S.A., curated by Nicholas Lowe, Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago, IL, June 20 – October 3
• 2009 Roger Brown: Early Work, Major Paintings and Constructions, 1968-1980, Russell Bowman Art Advisory, Chicago, IL, March 27 – May 16
• 2009 Roger Brown, Art Works: Chicago A Progressive Corporate Exhibition of Chicago Artists, Metropolitan Capital Bank, Chicago, IL
• 2008 Roger Brown: The American Landscape, DC Moore Gallery, New York, NY, May 1 – June 13
• 2007-2008 Roger Brown: Southern Exposure, curated by Sidney Lawrence, The Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art at Auburn University, AL, October 6, 2007 – January 5, 2008. Traveled to: The Katzen Arts Center, College of Arts and Sciences, American University, Washington, DC, February 5 - March 22, 2008; The Ogden Museum of Southern Art, University of New Orleans, LA, April 19 – July 31, 2008
• 2006 Roger Brown: The Last Paintings, Russell Bowman Art Advisory, Chicago, IL, April 21 – June 17
• 2005 Roger Brown: From the Collection of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Federal Reserve Board, Washington, DC, February 1 – April 15
• 2005 Jesse Howard and Roger Brown: Now Read On, H&R Block Artspace at the Kansas City Art Institute, Kansas City, Missouri, August 6 – September 17
• 2005 Jesse Howard and Roger Brown: Now Read On, Betty Rymer Gallery, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, October 14 – November 18
• 2004-2005 Roger Brown Paintings, Adam Baumgold Gallery, New York, NY, December 3, 2004 – January 15
• 2004 Roger Brown: A Different Dimension, Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, AL, April 10 – June 6. Traveled to: Chicago Cultural Center, IL, July 17 – September 26
• 2004 Roger Brown: Selections from the Collection of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Brauer Museum of Art, Valparaiso University, IN, October 15 – December 26
• 2003 Roger Brown, Chicago Imagist: Selected Works from the Roger Brown Study Collection of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Midwest Museum of American Art, Elkhart, IN, April – June 1
• 2001 Roger Brown: Great Lakes Selections from the Collection of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Brauer Museum of Art, Valparaiso University, Valparaiso, IN
• 2001 Recollections and Observations: The Prints of Roger Brown, curated by Richard A. Born, Joel and Carole Bernstein Gallery, Smart Museum of Art, University of Chicago, IL, July 14 – September 2
• 1999 Roger Brown Paintings from the SAIC Collection, The University Club of Chicago, IL

Publications

• 2012 Roger Brown: This Boy’s Own Story (exh. cat.), Chicago, IL: School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
• 2010 Brown, Roger, Nicholas Lowe, Lisa Stone, Christine Atha, and Dana Boutin. Roger Brown:</ref> Calif. U.S.A. (exh. cat.), Chicago, IL: School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
• 2008 Storr, Robert. “The American Landscape,” Roger Brown: The American Landscape (exh. cat.), New York, NY: DC Moore Gallery.
• 2007 Lawrence, Sidney, Lisa Stone, and Lee Gray. Roger Brown: Southern Exposure (exh. cat.), Tuscaloosa, Alabama: The University of Alabama Press.
• 2005 Howard, Jesse, Roger Brown, Lisa Stone, and Raechell Smith. Jesse Howard and Roger Brown: Now Read On (exh. cat.), Kansas City, MO: UMKC Center for Creative Studies.
• 2004 Brown, Roger, Dennis Adrian, and Lisa Stone. Roger Brown: A Different Dimension (exh. cat.), Montgomery, Alabama: Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts.
• 1998 Adrian, Dennis. A Selection of Works on Paper and Other Materials from the Roger Brown Study Collection of The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL: The School of the Art Institute of Chicago Press.
• 1998 Nesbit, Perry. Roger Brown and Friends in the Nineties (exh. cat.), Davidson, NC: Van Every/Smith Galleries, Davidson College.
• 1990 Gedo, Mary Mathews. “An Autobiography in the Shape of Alabama: The Art of Roger Brown.” In Postmodern Perspectives: Issues in Contemporary Art, ed. Howard Risatti, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, pp. 276-89.
• 1987 Lawrence, Sidney and John Yau. Roger Brown (exh. cat.), New York: George Braziller in association with the Hirshhorn Museum and Scultpure Garden, Smithsonian Institution.
• 1985 Adrian, Dennis. “Roger Brown and the Chicago Context: An Appreciation,” reprinted in Sight Out of Mind: Essays and Criticism on Art, Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press.
• 1980 Cowart, Jack. Currents 6: Roger Brown (exh. brochure), St. Louis: St. Louis Art Museum. Reprinted in Roger Brown. Matrix/Berkeley 35 (exh. brochure), Berkeley, CA: University Art Museum.
• 1980 Kahan, Mitchell Douglas with contributions by Dennis Adrian and Russell Bowman. Roger Brown (exh. cat.), Montgomery, Alabama: Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts.
• 1980 Keefe, Katherine Lee. “A Conversation,” Some Recent Art from Chicago (exh. cat.), Chapel Hill, North Carolina: Ackland Art Museum.

External links

• AbsolutArts
• Madison Museum of Contemporary Art
• Roger Brown Study Collection
• Full biography from The Art Institute of Chicago
• The Roger Brown Memorial Rock House
• Google Street View Roger Brown Study Collection, 1926 N. Halstead, Chicago