Red Grooms Figurative Drawings and Watercolors
American, b. 1937
Charles Roger Grooms was born in 1937 in Nashville, Tennessee, a city that, with its lively honky-tonk scene and the theatricality of the historic Grand Ole Opry, would later influence much of his work. Nicknamed for his ginger hair, Red enrolled at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1955. A self-proclaimed “restless and undisciplined student,” Grooms spent the next few years moving between schools and cities, including the New School in New York, Peabody College (now part of Vanderbilt University) in Nashville, and Hans Hofmann’s summer school in Provincetown, Massachusetts. Frustrated with the academic track and anxious to enter the New York art scene, Grooms abandoned formal education to focus exclusively on creating art and securing exhibition opportunities in his Chelsea neighborhood. There, he found quick success and a supportive circle of artists that became close friends and collaborators.
From the start of his career, Grooms has worked in multiple media, from painting, printmaking, and sculpture, to installation art, filmmaking, and theatrical experiences known as “Happenings.” Much of his art blurs the boundaries between these different forms, such as his large-scale, carefully-crafted environments he calls “sculpto-pictoramas,” and smaller objects like Dalí Salad. In this example, Grooms combines silkscreened and lithographic elements with a wooden base and acrylic dome to create a three-dimensional portrait of the famous Surrealist artist.
Grooms is perhaps best known for his colorful and comedic commentary on the culture, politics, and figures associated with the American urban environment and art historical traditions. Relying on satire and caricature, Grooms’ art has paid homage to a wide range of artists including Rembrandt, Auguste Rodin, Thomas Eakins, and Benjamin West, as well as national icons like Thomas Jefferson and Chuck Berry. Grooms’ disparate output is so difficult to classify that he has been compared to the influential Dada artist, Marcel Duchamp. Like Duchamp, Grooms often deliberately confronts the art world establishment, noting in 1974 that “it’s good to have . . . something to go against.”
Despite his affinity for defying the mainstream, Grooms is routinely cited by scholars as one of the leading American artists of his generation and was honored with the National Academy of Design’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 2003. The subject of a 1984 mid-career retrospective exhibition held at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, the artist’s work can be found in public collections across the United States, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, as well as in many international museums.
- The Johnson Collection, Spartanburg, South Carolina(Biography provided by Helicline Fine Art)
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Artist: Red Grooms
For Alice & Bo, Unique drawing of Provincetown Mass. beach, Pop Art figurative
By Red Grooms
Located in New York, NY
RED GROOMS
(Untitled), for Alice + Bo, Provincetown 1966
Original ink drawing on paper
Signed, inscribed and dated with a dateline of Provincetown on recto.
Vintage frame included
Th...
Category
1960s Pop Art Red Grooms Figurative Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Ink
Ruckus Rodeo (unique acrylic painting by famed Pop artist w/ Marlborough label)
By Red Grooms
Located in New York, NY
Red Grooms
Ruckus Rodeo, 1975
Acrylic and felt tip pen on paper
Signed and dated in black felt marker
Unique work
Provenance: Marlborough-Gerson Gallery, with original label verso
Frame included: in museum frame with UV plexiglass
Measurements:
22.75 inches vertical by 19.75 inches horizontal by 1.5 inches
Work
16.5 inches vertical by 13.5 inches horizontal
This work on paper, Ruckus Rodeo, is a unique study by Red Grooms for one of the most popular works of art in the Museum of Modern Art, Ft. Worth, Texas's collection. Ruckus Rodeo is an immense, walk-through work of art that covers 1,237 square feet of gallery space. It consists of painted two-dimensional surfaces and sculptural three-dimensional figures that re-create the Fort Worth rodeo. Grooms has referred to this work as a "sculpto-pictorama." Sculpture wire, canvas, burlap, acrylic paint, and a fiberglass compound known as celastic were used to construct the work’s Texas-sized, larger-than-life, three-dimensional caricatures of rodeo archetypes, which include the rodeo queen and her steed, a bucking bronc, playful rodeo clowns, and a giant yellow bull named Butter.
Ruckus Rodeo was commissioned for the Museum's 1976 exhibition The Great American Rodeo. Grooms was one of eleven artists invited to create a work for this show. In preparation, he attended every rodeo performance during Fort Worth's 1975 Stock Show and made many sketches. From these studies, Grooms drew a panoramic rodeo scene spanning more than seven feet, which served as the basis for Ruckus Rodeo's design. Grooms returned to his studio in New York to fabricate the work's major figures. In 1976, he returned to Fort Worth with the talented fifteen-member group of painters, sculptors, engineers, and carpenters known as the "Ruckus Construction Co.," who helped in the final assembly of Grooms's robust tableau.
Associate Curator Andrea Karnes commented, "Ruckus Rodeo portrays the chaos, entertainment, and danger of the Fort Worth rodeo. Grooms's engaging work is characterized by a grand sense of spectacle, encompassing the ritual, pageantry, and disorderly commotion of a real rodeo event. The artist's interest in naive and primitive objects, such as folk art puppets and toys, is easily seen in this work. His rich, arbitrary use of bold and unmodulated colors combined with angular contours creates a loud, brash ambience. Despite the work's cartoonish flair, it is clearly inflected with an urban sensibility. The characters' outfits, for example, are more like the vibrant apparel of the urban cowboy...
Category
1970s Pop Art Red Grooms Figurative Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Acrylic, Felt Pen
Study for Way Down East, Color Pencil Drawing by Red Grooms
By Red Grooms
Located in Long Island City, NY
Artist: Red Grooms
Title: Study for Way Down East
Year: circa 1965
Medium: Color Pencil and Watercolor on Paper, Signed verso
Size: 17.5 x 22 inches
Frame: 26 x 32 inches
"Way Down East" is best known as a 1920 American silent romantic drama film directed by D. W. Griffith and starring Lillian Gish...
Category
1960s Pop Art Red Grooms Figurative Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Color Pencil, Watercolor
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Red Grooms figurative drawings and watercolors for sale on 1stDibs.
Find a wide variety of authentic Red Grooms figurative drawings and watercolors available for sale on 1stDibs. If you’re browsing the collection of figurative drawings and watercolors to introduce a pop of color in a neutral corner of your living room or bedroom, you can find work that includes elements of blue and other colors. You can also browse by medium to find art by Red Grooms in paint, acrylic paint, color pencil and more. Much of the original work by this artist or collective was created during the 20th century and is mostly associated with the Pop Art style. Not every interior allows for large Red Grooms figurative drawings and watercolors, so small editions measuring 20 inches across are available. Customers who are interested in this artist might also find the work of Keith Haring, Larry Rivers, and Jules Engel. Red Grooms figurative drawings and watercolors prices can differ depending upon medium, time period and other attributes. On 1stDibs, the price for these items starts at $7,000 and tops out at $10,000, while the average work can sell for $9,500.
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Questions About Red Grooms Figurative Drawings and Watercolors
- 1stDibs ExpertApril 5, 2022Red Grooms, an American painter and sculptor, is best known for his life-size Pop art, which are known as “sculpto-pictoramas.” Ruckus Manhattan is the most famous of these, created by Grooms in 1975 with help from his assistants. It includes a model of the World Trade Center that’s 30 feet tall, a swaying Brooklyn Bridge, and a 15-foot-tall Statue of Liberty. On 1stDibs, shop a selection of Red Grooms artwork from top sellers worldwide.