Spring 2013 Update
Posted in ALL THE NEWS, Blogging the Archive, Happening Now at the RBSC on Sunday, May 19th, 2013
There’s nothing like the return of sandhill cranes to the Midwest after a long winter. Warm spring greetings from the Roger Brown Study Collection. Roger Brown, Memory of Sandhill Cranes, 1981, oil on canvas, 60 x 96 inches Managing the Roger Brown Estate continues to keep us on our toes. We’re thrilled to announce that [...]
Roger Brown’s Letters Home, 1960-1976
Posted in Blogging the Archive on Wednesday, April 17th, 2013
Written by Laura Bickford I spent the Fall semester of 2012 reading, sorting, and organizing a collection of photocopied letters that Roger Brown wrote home to his parents from 1960-1976. These were formative years for Brown, documenting his decision to leave the South and become an artist, his first impressions of Chicago, art school, [...]
2012: year in review
Posted in ALL THE NEWS on Tuesday, December 11th, 2012
Greetings. The RBSC is in its fifteenth year of serving SAIC as a house museum encompassing the intimate nature of “home,” among many other things. 2012 is also the fifteenth anniversary of Brown’s passing from this world into the next, and from full time artist in his lifetime, to full time teacher posthumously, through his [...]
RBSC in the Chicago Reader
Posted in ALL THE NEWS on Wednesday, May 2nd, 2012
The Chicago Reader recently featured the Roger Brown Study Collection in their Culture Vultures weekly series of recommendations. Curator and Smart Museum staff member Alice Kain’s recommendation can be seen here.
Roger Brown Study Collection fall update
Posted in ALL THE NEWS on Monday, December 19th, 2011
Just Add Water…. In July heavy rain flooded the basement at 1926. Among the hidden treasures we exhumed during the cleanup were eight carved and silver-painted panels of draped fabric with billowing folds. In a 1995 video they appear installed in Brown’s studio and he explains that these lovely, enigmatic objects were panels from a [...]
Deinstalling and Reinstalling Roger Brown’s New Buffalo Collection
Posted in Happening Now at the RBSC on Thursday, December 8th, 2011
This past summer I assisted RBSC staff members Lisa Stone and Nick Lowe along with art conservator Tim Fox and his team of art handlers, Kelly Stachura and Daniel Baird, in deinstalling and then reinstalling Roger Brown’s collection at his New Buffalo, Michigan residency for the interior to be worked on. The entire process, partially [...]
First-graders from the Pritzker school visit the RBSC
Posted in Happening Now at the RBSC on Thursday, March 24th, 2011
Heather Reed recently brought her class of first-graders to the RBSC for a unique museum experience on all ends. Laura Bickford guides a group of students through the living room of the Study Collection The students, who have been studying the work of Roger Brown, impressed all of us at the RBSC with their ability [...]
Installing the Barcelona Table
Posted in STAFF PICS on Wednesday, March 16th, 2011
I’ve often started tours of the RBSC by gathering a group around the Barcelona table in the living room, using it to introduce the logic behind the formation of Roger Brown’s collection. Located centrally in the living room of Roger Brown’s former Chicago home, the Barcelona Table and the objects on it reveal the convergence [...]
The SUPER DIMENSION LIVING NATURAL COLOR 3·D COLLECTOR POSTCARD
Posted in STAFF PICS on Wednesday, February 9th, 2011
The SUPER DIMENSION LIVING NATURAL COLOR 3·D COLLECTOR POSTCARD of a stoic Jesus Christ watching over cars on a highway caught my eye on my first visit to the Roger Brown Study Collection in 2004. Installed near Brown’s kitchen sink in what seems to be a Christian-ephemera-themed corner, the object is placed in close proximity [...]
All The (Recent) News
Posted in ALL THE NEWS on Wednesday, February 9th, 2011
Our complete fall update can be downloaded here. The building renovation projects begun last spring were completed by mid summer. With the new roof in place, the dark cloud of concern that hovered over staff with each storm since 1997 has vanished. The building feels sturdier after re-pointing and parapet repair. In its newly refreshed [...]
