The Future of Roger Brown's Home & Studio
This past week Dennis Rodkin of Crain’s Chicago Business reported that the School of the Art Institute of Chicago is selling the historic 19th-century building in Chicago’s Lincoln Park where artist Roger Brown once lived and worked. A year before his death in 1997, the artist bequeathed his home and studio, along with his collection, to the Art Institute. For nearly thirty years, between 1997 and 2024, the widely celebrated Roger Brown Study Collection operated as a museum, allowing students and visitors to learn and take inspiration from the preserved space. It contained “more than 2,000 artworks by Chicago Imagists and non-mainstream artists, folk and indigenous art, objects from material and popular culture, costumes, textiles, furniture, travel souvenirs, and sundry objects.” The Art Institute sold Brown’s archive to the Kohler Foundation in December 2024.
The real estate listing’s first sentence describes the property as “a rare opportunity…to demolish the existing structure to make the land vacant and ready for development” before even mentioning its association with Brown. Within days of the property hitting the market, Roger Brown’s former home and studio, which has no landmark protection, is already contingent, putting its future in doubt. For years I’ve been expressing my concerns on social media that the Chicago Historic Resources Survey needs to be updated. It’s long overdue. The world has changed significantly since its creation thirty years ago, and the survey no longer effectively preserves the city’s architectural legacy, especially its many vernacular buildings vulnerable to demolition, such as workers cottages and this 1888 brick structure that retains many vintage features, including a Chicago Daily News ghost sign on its northern side.
The building itself features a ground-floor storefront space with 11- to 12-ft-high ceilings, a two-bedroom apartment above, an unfinished basement, and, through the small backyard that Brown designed in the 1990s, a detached two-car garage (Brown’s 1967 Mustang used to be stored here and guests were allowed to sit inside it). The 1880s Italianate brick structure with a full-width cast-iron facade carries a high price tag due to its prime location in a gentrified and busy part of Lincoln Park, which is well known for its tear downs and new builds. Unfortunately, the building sits just outside the Armitage-Halsted District that would have protected it from demolition.
Brown bought the property in 1974 and, together with his partner George Veronda, renovated the then 86-yr-old building, which included three apartments and a retail space, and turned it into his living/working space as well as a location to display his extensive collection. Brown had “a high regard for the meaning of objects for the visual artist,” even if it was just “trash treasures” found in alleys or bought at antique shops or Chicago’s Maxwell Street Market. He "turned an 1880s building into a place appropriate for modern living, but…didn't destroy the character of the old building."
According to a Bluesky thread by preservationist and SAIC alum Susannah Ribstein, who wrote the National Register of Historic Places nomination for the home and studio, Landmarks Illinois was moving quickly to secure local landmark status for the contingent property (along with both Preservation Chicago and Preservation Futures). An offer has been made by a “prospective buyer…[who] has indicated that they plan to ‘preserve’ the building to serve as their private home;” however, this is not always a guarantee. (We have seen many instances where so-called promises fall through. The buyer of a Keck & Keck-designed home made similar claims, only to demolish it as quickly as possible.) Ribstein, along with architectural historian and SAIC alum Elizabeth Blasius, co-authored a compelling commentary piece in the Chicago Tribune advocating for its preservation. Read it here.
“From a business perspective, the relatively small amount of money that the school stands to net through a sale would be made up many times over in the property’s ability to attract students, faculty and development funds if it is retained and marketed as the utterly unique asset that we know it is.”
Born and raised in Alabama, Brown arrived in Chicago in 1962 to study commercial design at the American Academy of Art. This was during a period of transition not only in the art world but also at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), where he was also a student between 1966-68. “Some [of his] professors rejected traditional Renaissance works in favor of Surrealism or expressionism. Many forms of non-Western art were taught, including folk and primitive art, and SAIC was one of the first schools to recognize self-taught practitioners as artists in their own right.”
I won’t get into the entire history of the Chicago Imagists, an informal group of artists that rejected New York art movements and were known for their “grotesque, surreal style of bold lines and vibrant colors [who] drew inspiration from popular culture and everyday objects,” but the group included not only Brown but also one of my favorite artists, Ed Paschke. It is important to point out that their work received local, national and international recognition.
According to the book Art in Chicago, “Brown engaged in politics and homosexuality from the outset of his career. If any [local] artist of this [late 1960s/early1970s] period engaged with the joy and horror of living in the city, it was Brown, whose frequent depictions of architecture affectionately reference Chicago…[like] his 1973 solo exhibition at Phyllis Kind Galley devoted to the theme of ‘disasters,’ which included residential high-rises and skyscrapers in apocalyptic tumult.” Speaking of skyscrapers, Brown’s best known work is probably his mural, The Flight of Daedalus and Icarus, above the main entrance to 120 N. LaSalle in Chicago’s Loop.
Back in the early 2000s, when I was trying to figure out what to do with my life (something I am still doing, to be honest), I briefly considered applying to SAIC’s Master of Science in Historic Preservation program. I had heard good things from an acquaintance but ultimately went through the exhausting and disappointing experience of moving to Manchester, England to receive a Master of Arts in Museum Studies from the University of Manchester that wasn’t worth the piece of paper it was printed on (and also left me with a lot of debt due to the expenses of relocating and living in another country). I sometimes wonder what would have happened if I had gone with SAIC, considering historic preservation is an area that I still am interested in all these years later. While selling pieces from a collection is not inherently wrong, I find what has happened to Brown’s archive and home/studio to be a complete disregard for preserving and understanding a local artistic movement, as well as a living monument to an important local artist.
Funnily enough, my dissertation at the University of Manchester examined the reconstruction of buildings (think Greenfield Village, Williamsburg, and Norsk Folkemuseum), with a particular focus on the reconstruction of the Charles Rennie Mackintosh House at the Hunterian Art Gallery in Glasgow, Scotland. I have always been interested in architecture, preservation, and, specifically, placing buildings in their historical context. That is why I find this particular move by the School of the Art Institute so disheartening. Not only did they sell his collection, which is now located out of state and has thus lost all meaning, but an organization known for its historic preservation program is also openly selling a building that could potentially be gutted or demolished. How is this allowed to happen?
I question many of the recent decisions by the Art Institute’s museum and school. The Terzo Piano rooftop restaurant was permanently closed and is now used exclusively for private and social events for museum members. There is the more than million dollar salary of museum director, James Rondeau, which seems excessive to me, and while the school has its own leadership, it is believed that the high tuition paid by students probably pads the salaries of AIC staff. Then there was the controversial decision to end the 60-year-old volunteer docent program, which could have been handled more thoughtfully, especially since it involved letting go of long-standing volunteers with personal connections to donations. Lastly, there is a potential threat to the historic McKinlock Court due to plans for a new modern building.
When the SAIC closed the Roger Brown Study Collection in 2023, there was a promise to maintain the property as a house museum and study center according to his wishes. They noted that "the Roger Brown Study Collection is currently closed for a long-planned renovation project on the first floor. When it re-opens, the building again will honor Brown's vision to have his studio serve as an Artists' Museum of Chicago.” That did not happen. Instead, his archive was sold out of state, claiming it needed to be in a “safe and and climate-controlled museum,” and now the place where he lived and worked for twenty years may not be with us much longer. The SAIC claims in this recent article that they rejected an offer made by a developer. But, again, why is this even a possibility? Why didn’t SAIC (with its preservation program) landmark the building before putting it up for sale?
Everything seems terrible right now in the U.S., particularly when it comes to art, culture, and history. We need them now more than ever before. Civilized nations depend on the roles they play in shaping identity and community. Brown himself said: “I feel the things in the collection are of universal appeal to all artists and people with a sense of the spiritual and mystical nature that material things can provoke.” While that collection survives up in Wisconsin, I worry about the future of this building associated with an important local artist. Chicago prides itself on selling and showcasing its architecture and history to tourists from around the world, yet it simultaneously undermines that identity by continually destroying its heritage. Every single day the city loses its soul and character. What kind of legacy will the city leave if it continues down this path of destruction?
SOURCES:
Art In Chicago: A History From The Fire to Now edited by Maggie Taft, Robert Cozzolino
National Register of Historic Places Form
https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/09/19/opinion-chicago-roger-brown-home-landmark-status/
https://www.jstor.org/site/artstor/RogerBrownStudyCollection-100146207/?
really appreciate you highlighting roger brown’s home and studio—chicago’s preservation gaps definitely need more attention. you’re right that saic could have done more to protect this unique space, and your points about the historic resources survey are spot on.
that said, the collection itself has been preserved in wisconsin, so it’s not accurate to say it “loses all meaning” by leaving the state. and some of the broader statements about the u.s. or chicago “losing its soul” feel a bit hyperbolic—they distract from the real, actionable issue: saving irreplaceable structures before it’s too late.
this is a great opportunity to push for concrete steps—landmark protections, support for preservation orgs, and ensuring chicago learns from this case. thanks for bringing attention to it.