Raised in Miami, figurative painter August Becker put down roots in Chicago after moving in 1950 to study at the Art Institute of Chicago. Becker won the Campana Memorial Prize at the open juried Chicago Show at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1955 for his painting TOM FIGURE and was acclaimed by Arts Digest as a “sophisticated newcomer.” He was introduced to Gertrude Abercrombie and her Bohemian crew by Don Baum, an artist and curator in Chicago who would go on to be a key proponent of the Chicago Imagists. Though Becker was initially put off by Abercrombie, finding her “[n]ot just odd, but perverse,” he eventually became a part of her inner circle of friends and was immersed in the early art scene in Chicago. By the end of the decade Becker had moved abroad before making his way to New York City, and now lives and works in Washington, D.C. and Florida.
