Roger Brown Study Collection

This unassuming 19th century brownstone on Halsted contains a hidden cabinet of curiosities in its second floor apartment. The home, formerly owned by artist Roger Brown, is hard to process all at once. This dizzying array of collected figurines, folk art, and tchotchkes provides a unique peek into Brown's life and process.

Roger Brown was a Southern-born member of the Chicago Imagist school, which mixed naïve art and surrealism into dystopian representational work for the Vietnam War era. Brown in particular drew inspiration from lowbrow folk art and comics, which found their way into his two-dimensional, patterned paintings. 

Collected objects were a critical part of Brown's discipline as an artist. He drew inspiration from things he picked up throughout his life, and displayed each and every object he found in his home. This included work by fellow Chicago imagist artists such as Ray Yoshida, Jim Nutt, and Barbara Rossi, but also outsider art, including 36 works by Joseph Yoakum, an African-American/Cherokee painter who began creating imaginary American landscapes when he was 76.

The work of established artists, art by unknown amateurs, knick knacks made by his friends, and even trash were all of equal merit to Brown. He also had an intense interest in non-western art, and his collection included Mexican Guerrero masks, Panamanian Kuna molas, and Yoruba twin figurines. All of this remains in Brown's apartment much as he left it before his death in 1997, including his '68 Mustang still parked in the garage.

Brown gifted his home to School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where he received both his BFA and MFA and was the locus of the Imagist movement. The school has preserved the artist's apartment and collection ever since as an educational repository for learning artists. The first floor, formerly Brown's studio, was repurposed and now hosts a lecture area for visiting groups in addition to offices for museum staff. The first floor also curates a regularly changing collection of outsider art in keeping with Brown's vision. Visitors can also peek at Brown's personal sketchbooks, rare pieces of Imagist art, and an overwhelming trove of curiosities.