Roger Medearis

Roger Medearis was an American painter and printmaker, born in Fayette, Missouri. He studied at the Kansas City Art Institute, where he was a student of Thomas Hart Benton. A devote regionalist with an astute sense of detail, he fit well in his position as a draftsman for the Navy during World War II. Unfortunately for Medearis, by the time the war ended, regionalism had fallen out of favor and he had no interest in the abstract expressionist movement that had gained dominance. Unable to make ends meet as an artist, he abandoned the arts for nearly three decades, working as a salesman in the Midwest until the late 1960s, when interest in his work began to resurface.  He continued to draw, paint and produce lithographs until his death in 2001.