Roger Brown

Roger Brown (1941–1997) was an American painter and a leading figure of the Chicago Imagist movement, alongside Barbara Rossi, Jim Nutt, Ed Paschke, and others. Known for his boldly composed, visually arresting paintings, Brown rejected the Minimalism and Conceptualism that dominated his era in favor of imagery rooted in American Southern culture, folk art, machine-age design, and early comic strips.

Born on December 10, 1941, in Hamilton, Alabama, Brown initially pursued religious studies at David Lipscomb College in Nashville before committing fully to the visual arts. He went on to earn both his BFA and MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, the institution that would shape his artistic voice and connect him to the broader Imagist community.

Brown's paintings are characterized by their simplified forms, vivid color, and direct engagement with political and social subject matter. Rather than retreating into personal abstraction, he sought to capture the shared textures of everyday life. As he described his approach: "I try to paint the things that everybody sees, things that are just a part of everybody's experience of life. Then I suppose it goes through a kind of personal transformation — but that is different from being totally involved with one's own internalized fantasies."

His work entered the permanent collections of some of the most prominent institutions in the country, including The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., and the Art Institute of Chicago. His former home and studio at 1926 North Halsted Street in Chicago served as the Roger Brown Study Collection, a house museum and archive preserving his personal collection of Chicago Imagist works, folk art, and objects from popular culture.

Roger Brown died on November 22, 1997, in Atlanta, Georgia, following a long battle with HIV and AIDS. His legacy endures as a defining voice in American figurative painting and a cornerstone of the Chicago Imagist tradition.