When Tonya Rogers started working at the University of Mississippi in January, she had no clue that her first year would include a personal revelation. Less than a mile from her office is a painting of herself and her childhood friend created by her late uncle, Michael Rogers.
Tonya Rogers, a Memphis native, serves as the Career Center’s assistant director of career development, though she did not plan to build a career in Oxford.
“I really had no other intention of ever coming to Oxford, and (I) just so happened to get the job,” Rogers said.
As she began the new position, memories of her uncle’s time at the university resurfaced. What seemed like small childhood memories now carried much more emotion.
“I remember going to pick him up when, I guess maybe it was the end of the semester … me (and) my cousin were in the back of the pickup truck, and once we picked him up, his boxes and things were in the back with us,” Rogers said.
Michael Rogers earned his Master of Fine Arts in painting from UM in 1981. He was an accomplished realist painter who captured a range of scenes, from simple objects such as dishes in the sink to meaningful family portraits — one of which features Tonya Rogers and her childhood friend Melissa. The painting is displayed in the Lyceum.
“People admire that painting because of the details, the expression of joy on the girls’ faces,” Tonya Rogers said. “They always ask who they are, and they had never known who the girls were.”
For Rogers, the painting’s presence at the university was unexpected. Her family thought the painting had remained in the possession of the Smithsonian Institution, one of the many prestigious galleries where Michael Rogers’ art has been exhibited.
“He never really mentioned anything about his art still being here on campus,” Rogers said. “For all we knew, all his art was still at home or (with) other family members or wherever he had given the art.”
Her uncle practiced art and photography as a hobby, but his work reached great heights. By the time he graduated from UM, his artwork had been collected at the White House, the National Museum of American Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Michael Rogers died on Aug. 3. After attending his wake, Tonya Rogers returned to work with a copy of his obituary. She showed it to her boss, Toni Avant, in hopes she would remember him from her own time at UM. That conversation led to an unexpected emotional realization.
“We walked in and walked to the office and there, right down the hallway, was this big picture, and it’s a picture that my uncle painted,” Rogers said. “It was the same (as the) one in (his) obituary — (the painting) of me and my friend.”
The discovery was emotional for Rogers but also for Avant and the other staff members. Many were misty-eyed by the timing of this connection so soon after his death.
“When I saw that painting on the wall, it was just kind of like, ‘Oh my God, I guess I need to be here because the painting of me that my uncle did is literally on the wall,’” Rogers said.
