Alvin Raymon Rosser

1928 - 2017

LAKEWOOD, Colo. - Alvin Raymon Rosser, 89, passed away on Nov. 2, in his place of residence, in Lakewood, Colo. He is survived by his daughters, Shellie Rosser, of Silverthorne, Colo., and Jill Rosser, of Athens, Ohio; his granddaughter, Devon Halliday; and his brother, Daniel Rosser.
For 22 years Mr. Rosser taught art at Sparta Junior High School, in Sparta. Born in New Marshfield, Ohio, in 1928, the son of Sam and Reba (McDaniel) Rosser, he grew up in Athens, Ohio, and graduated from Athens High School in 1946. From a very early age, he demonstrated his extraordinary gift for painting, and traveled around Ohio doing portraits and caricatures at Ohio county fairs to help defray his college expenses. After graduating in 1950 with a BFA from Ohio University, he served in the U.S. Army as a telegrapher in Germany (1950-1952). He then returned to Ohio University, where he met and married his late wife, Barbara Rosser. He studied with celebrated artists, Aaron Bohrod, Charles Burchfield and Hans Hofmann.
After completing his MFA in art in 1953, he frequently exhibited his paintings at the New York City Center and various New York City galleries. While in New York, he also worked as a commercial artist for the Mutual Broadcasting System and as a scenic designer and painter for Harnick-Adams productions (including the scenery for several Broadway plays). As an art educator he taught at Chagrin Falls High School and Lehigh University, before teaching at Sparta Junior High.
The subject matter of his painting for many years was mainly the rural landscape of Sussex County, where he always tried "to keep one step ahead of the developers." In recent years, his work was largely in portraits of real and imagined people, often reflecting his delightful sense of humor and his keen sensitivity to nuances of expression. He is listed in Who's Who in American Art, and has won Best in Show in the 1989 Skylands Art Exhibit, among other juried competitions. His art lives on in the homes of hundreds of collectors who have purchased his work over the years.
Mr. Rosser also published a number of poems and short essays in national magazines. One of his essays was selected by Paul Auster for the anthology, "I Thought My Father Was God," published by Picador in 2002.
During their 59 years of marriage, he shared with his late wife, Barbara, a passion for gardening, beekeeping, traveling and ventriloquism - he sculpted the puppets and built their internal mechanisms, while Barbara was the performer. Over the years, Mr. Rosser collected hundreds of 6x6 woodcuts made by the students in his seventh-grade art classes (from which they made their prints), and used the blocks of wood to panel a wall in his Sparta home. Typical of his humor was the legend he wrote beside the wall as if it were an exhibit in a museum: "Created at the expense of 1,822 hours of child labor."
Mr. Rosser loved to tell amusing anecdotes about his Ohio boyhood, such as the time he was hired to be a shill in the audience of a county fair, and the day his little brother, Jack, came home smelling strongly of skunk, explaining: "I threw an apple at that black-and-white kitty."
He was an avid reader of Charles Dickens and would often recite poetry from memory. He will be deeply missed by his students, friends, and loving family for his kindness and generosity, and his uniquely wry sense of humor.