Lloyd Norman Rognan was born on June 14, 1923 in Chicago, Illinois. His father, John Rognan, was born in 1886 in Norway and came to America in 1906. His mother, Gertrude Sophia Hagen Nilsen, was born in 1891 in Norway and came to America in 1907. His parents married in 1920. He was their only child. The family lived at 2624 Attrill Court in Chicago. The father was a vocalist, who sang with the Chicago Opera, but he supported his family by working full-time as a custom tailor at a men's clothing shop.
In September of 1938 he began to attend high school, where he became interested in a career as an artist. He contributed drawings to his school publications and yearbook.
After completing the 10th grade, his family moved to 1827 North Francisco Avenue, so he transferred to Lane Tech High School, where he received advanced art training.
In 1941 he was a Junior in high school, when he began to attend night classes at American Academy of Art in Chicago.
On January 5, 1942 his father, John Rognan, died at the age of fifty-six.
In June of 1942 he graduated from Lane Tech High School.
On February 25, 1943, during World War Two, Lloyd Rognan entered military service in the Army. In June of 1944 he participated in the Normandy invasion. He was awarded the Purple Heart. In 1945 he was a staff artist on the Army newspaper, Stars & Stripes. He was honorably discharged on March 27, 1946. The April 1946 issue of Life Magazine included an article about the unusual experiences of GIs in Paris, which featured "Pvt. Lloyd Rognan." Rather than return home, he stayed in Paris and enrolled at the Academie de la Grand Chaumiere, where he studied art for three years.
While living in Paris he supported himself by selling freelance illustrations to French magazines and paperback books.
In 1951 he left Paris and moved back to Chicago, where he found work at the Jahn Ollier Advertising Agency, while taking night classes at the Art Institute of Chicago.
On July 18, 1953 he married Sylvia Marcella Erickson. She was born on August 17, 1922. The married couple moved to Glenview, IL, where they raised two children, Bruce (b.1955) and Cindy (b.1956).
In 1955 the artist found work at the Greenleaf Publishing Company, which was owned by Bill Hamling. Greenleaf produced Rogue Magazine, Fate, Imaginative Tales and Imagination. Another artist who worked for Greenleaf at that time was Harold McCauley.
In the 1960s Lloyd Rognan worked as a full-time staff artist at Brown & Bigelow, where he illustrated calendars, prints, and greeting cards. He created the "Corn Squeezins" line, which featured comical hillbillies.
The artist also sold freelance work to the Golden Book Encyclopedia, greeting cards, wildlife prints, and painted portrait commissions.
In 1993, at the age of seventy, he retired from his art career, and moved with his wife to Independence, Missouri, to live near their children.
Lloyd Rognan died at the age of eighty-one in his retirement home in Independence, MO, on February 6, 2005.
© David Saunders 2020 |
