Best known for his extravagant life-sized artworks of stores, subways, and city scenes, Red Grooms populates these environments with offbeat, spirited, easily identifiable characters who strike a humorous chord. Intertwining sculpture with painting, his work transcends both traditional portraiture and caricature.
This is the first major book on Red Grooms's work published since 1984 and includes many drawings, personal photographs, and prints that have never been seen or published. Many of his famed sculpto-pictoramas appear in full color and some in gatefolds, such as Moby Dick Meets the NYPL, Tennessee Carousel, and The Marathon.
Grooms's 1995 Grand Central Terminal is still remembered by thousands as a peak artistic experience. Other environments include an agricultural building for the Des Moines Art Center in Iowa, the beloved Ruckus Manhattan (complete with subway car and Brooklyn Bridge), and a Ruckus Rodeo commissioned by the Fort Worth Museum of Modern Art. Mixed-media pieces highlight portraits of classic and contemporary artists, from Toulouse-Lautrec to Francis Bacon. Hollywood greats, historical figures, even Chuck Berry, have been immortalized in the exuberant Grooms style.
Arthur Danto writes on Red Grooms and the spirit of comedy; Marco Livingstone's introduction contextualizes Red Grooms's work in the art of his time and discusses his relationship to Pop, Happenings, environmental art, and developments in painting; a recent interview with Red Grooms by Timothy Hyman completes the text.
Grooms's work has been exhibited in museums and galleries throughout the United States and around the world. The artist lives in New York City and Nashville, Tennessee.
- ISBN10 084782635X
- ISBN13 9780847826353
- Publish Date 1 September 2004 (first published 1 March 2001)
- Publish Status Out of Stock
- Out of Print 27 August 2024
- Publish Country US
- Imprint Rizzoli International Publications
- Format Hardcover
- Language English