Known for Painter, Drawings Period Realism Role Artist | Name R. Sprague Movement Realist | |
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Born September 12, 1937 Buffalo, New York Awards 1992 C. Howard Wilkins, Sr. Award, Witchita Art Association
1962 Elmer Capshaw Award for Excellence in Graphics, He was honored as Artist in Residence at the University of Oklahoma in 2001 Died July 28, 2010, Santa Fe, New Mexico, United States Education El Dorado High School, University of Oklahoma | ||
R. B. (Roger) Sprague (September 12, 1937 – July 28, 2010) was an American Contemporary Realist artist.
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Biography
Sprague was born in Buffalo, New York, and raised in south Arkansas, graduating from El Dorado High School. He attended the University of Oklahoma and graduated with a BA in Fine Arts, with majors in botany, architecture, and finally, in painting. Sprague resided in New York City and worked as booking agent and shipboard companion for United States Lines. He lived for a year on Swan's Island, Maine, where his father's family started life in the U.S. His conviction to make art his life and his living came to fruition in 1975 when he moved to New Mexico, working briefly in Bosque Farms in a plant nursery, then moving to a one-room arrangement in Santa Fe in 1979 where he dedicated his life to his art.
In 2010, Patricia Rovzar Gallery said:
R.B. Sprague is driven by his never-ending exploration of scale and light. Painting in oil on linen the majority of Sprague's work focuses on interior spaces and the relationships of the objects he places within those spaces. He defines his compositions with common objects like tables and chairs but always leaves ample room for the viewer to create their own interpretation.
In 1987, R.B. Sprague said in Southwest Art:
I paint what I see, and what attracts me is light and the geometry it illuminates. When I see light on a surface at a particular moment. I think it will follow me for the rest of my life.