Roger Brown is an artist associated with the Chicago Imagists, a group of artists who graduated from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago who created representational art inspired by everyday pop culture imagery, such as comic books and kitsch. The Chicago Imagists were most active in the late 1960s and early 70s. Brown’s stylized, patterned paintings of interiors and landscapes were often inspired by the folk art that he collected.

Couple in Sumac Thicket depicts two silhouetted figures in a grove of tall plants. For the background, Brown interlaced sections of gray and white to create an undulating pattern of sky and clouds. The foliage is similarly rhythmic, with reeds punctuating the sumac in a curved horizontal line.