Roger Crossgrove

Roger Lynn Crossgrove (November 17, 1921 – December 14, 2016) was an American artist and educator who served as Professor of Art at the Pratt Institute and the University of Connecticut for a total of 35 years. He was best known for his monotype watercolors and photographs of the male nude.

Early life and education Crossgrove was born in 1921 in Farnam, Nebraska, to parents Lynn E. Crossgrove (1896–1978) and Iva E. Crossgrove (1893–1976). He had a sister, Ardyce J., and a brother, Dale Eugene. His father was a farmer, and his mother was a self-taught artist. Both were Nebraska natives.

During World War II, Crossgrove served in the United States Army. He was deployed to the 73rd Field Hospital on Leyte in the Philippines, serving from 1942 to 1946. He attained the rank of staff sergeant and received the Philippines Liberation Medal and the Bronze Star Medal. The pair became lifelong friends. Robert Mapplethorpe, Ken Kerslake, and Michael Maslin also studied under him. Former students described him as patient, supportive, good-humored, and committed to imparting broad foundational knowledge to his pupils.

Artistic work In addition to teaching, Crossgrove had a national reputation as an artist. He lived and painted for two years in Mexico, in 1950 and 1965. Starting in 1976, Crossgrove branched out into photography, focusing on the male nude and experimenting with timed-exposure light tracing, a technique also employed by Picasso, and which subsequently saw widespread adoption among photographic artists.

Crossgrove exhibited widely in group and solo shows. He exhibited at the Whitney Museum of American Art (1956), Artworks Gallery in Hartford (2006), the William Benton Museum of Art (2016), and the Slater Memorial Museum. He won an Emily Lowe Award, a National Arts Club Gold Medal, and awards from the American Water Color Society, the Butler Institute of American Art, and Audubon Artists. He was a member of the Connecticut Academy of Fine Arts and the Connecticut Water Color Society. The state's poet laureate, Marilyn Nelson, honored him with her 2002 poem “The Good Man."

In 2013, Crossgrove donated his papers to the Smithsonian Institution’s Archives of American Art. Having become interested in children’s book illustrations in the later stages of his career, he donated his collections of photographs, posters, and children's books to the Northeast Children’s Literature Collection, part of the Archives and Special Collections at the UConn Library.

Personal life Crossgrove married Wynona McDermand (1927–2010) in 1948. The couple had six children: Cory, Chris, Cathy, Carolyn, Camilla, and Carl. His wife and son Cory predeceased him.

Crossgrove died on December 14, 2016, at the age of 95 in Storrs, Connecticut.