Artist Biography
A Missouri native, Roger Medearis studied under the famed regionalist Thomas Hart Benton at the Kansas City Art Institute. Under Benton’s influence, Medearis developed a detailed preparatory method of sketching and creating three-dimensional clay models of his subjects. He was featured in the important 1950 exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, American Painting Today. During World War II, Medearis worked as a draftsman for the United States Navy, but after the war, with the rise of Abstract Expressionism and waning interest in Regionalism, he gave up painting. He would not begin making art again until the 1960s, with the
A Missouri native, Roger Medearis studied under the famed regionalist Thomas Hart Benton at the Kansas City Art Institute. Under Benton’s influence, Medearis developed a detailed preparatory method of sketching and creating three-dimensional clay models of his subjects. He was featured in the important 1950 exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, American Painting Today. During World War II, Medearis worked as a draftsman for the United States Navy, but after the war, with the rise of Abstract Expressionism and waning interest in Regionalism, he gave up painting. He would not begin making art again until the 1960s, with the last thirty years of his life being especially productive. Works by Medearis are in the permanent collections of the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art.
A Missouri native, Roger Medearis studied under the famed regionalist Thomas Hart Benton at the Kansas City Art Institute. Under Benton’s influence, Medearis developed a detailed preparatory method of sketching and creating three-dimensional clay models of his subjects. He was featured in the important 1950 exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, American Painting Today. During World War II, Medearis worked as a draftsman for the United States Navy, but after the war, with the rise of Abstract Expressionism and waning interest in Regionalism, he gave up painting. He would not begin making art again until the 1960s, with the last thirty years of his life being especially productive. Works by Medearis are in the permanent collections of the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art.
