Jeremy Lybarger has been selected as the inaugural recipient of the Clio Fellowship for Archival Research for his biography of Roger Brown, the Chicago artist known for his boldly figurative paintings and his pivotal role in American art history. Lybarger will use the $5,000 prize to conduct research at the Kohler Art Preserve in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, where Brown’s papers are archived.

“Winning the inaugural Clio Fellowship for Archival Research is a meaningful honor,” said Lybarger. “It provides crucial support for deep, on-site research while also affirming the value of this project. As a first-time biographer, that vote of confidence will sustain me through the long, sometimes lonely, often overwhelming work of writing a life. Roger Brown was a scrupulous custodian of his own legacy, saving nearly every scrap of paper he touched; I like to think he’d be pleased to know his recordkeeping is being put to use.”

The Clio Fellowship is endowed by Linda Leavell, a Plutarch Award-winning biographer and past president of Biographers International Organization. It supports one or more biographers in traveling to archival collections related to their biographical book project. Named for Clio, the Greek muse of history and memory, the fellowship aims to reduce the financial barriers that the cost of essential archival work can present to biographers.

“From a large pool of excellent applications, the committee members were very impressed with Jeremy’s proposal for his biography of the ‘defiantly Midwestern’ artist Roger Brown, a project under contract with the University of Chicago Press,” said Natalie Dykstra, award committee member. “His clear and vivid prose showed not only a wonderful command of Brown’s under-examined story but also its importance to American art history.”

Lybarger’s writing has appeared in Artforum, The New York Times, The Nation, The New Republic, and The New York Review of Books, among other publications. He has received grants and fellowships from Lambda Literary, the Graham Foundation, and the Robert B. Silvers Foundation. In 2025, he was awarded an Arts Writers Grant from the Andy Warhol Foundation. He is a senior editor at Poetry magazine in Chicago.