Biography

Meet Roger Winter

Roger Winter’s story begins in the red clay fields of East Texas, where the Great Depression cast a long shadow over his childhood. Born into a family of itinerant farmers, Roger grew up without running water or electricity—his earliest memories shaped by the daily hardships of rural poverty and the relentless dust storms that swept across the land. As a young boy, he narrowly survived dust pneumonia, a perilous illness that claimed thousands during the “Dirty Thirties”. Much of his youth was spent in a sickbed, gazing at the world from a window, his imagination his only escape.

By all accounts, Roger should not have survived, let alone thrived. Yet, even as illness threatened to confine him, a spark of talent and an insatiable curiosity began to grow. Friends and family recall his “bulldog spirit”—a quiet, unyielding determination that refused to be broken by circumstance. Where others saw limitation, Roger saw possibility. He sketched what he saw and dreamed of distant places, his mind reaching beyond the boundaries of his small, dust-choked world.

As the years passed, Roger’s resilience became his defining trait. He was the first in his family to attend college, eventually earning degrees in art and embarking on a journey that would take him from the sunbaked fields of Texas to the vibrant streets of New York City. Along the way, he developed a distinctive artistic voice—fusing realism and abstraction, light and structure, memory and vision.

Roger Winter’s life and art are a testament to the power of perseverance and imagination. Against all odds, he transformed hardship into beauty, and adversity into inspiration—leaving an indelible mark on American art and proving that, sometimes, the greatest masterpieces are forged in the crucible of survival.