Still Life with Green Chair

Roger Medearis learned to concoct the labor-intensive medium of egg tempera by watching his teacher, the Regionalist artist Thomas Hart Benton (whose Yankee Driver hangs to the left), mix dry pigment with egg yolk thinned with water on a glass palette until he obtained the desired color and consistency. While Medearis worked in the same medium, he described his technique as "by nature much slower, more cautious." Benton expert Henry Adams has described this painting as a remarkable example of work in tempera, both in its technique and expressive qualities.