Collection: Red Grooms

Red Grooms (b.1937-), is an American multi-media pop artist. He is best known for his painted-collage sculptures of both observed and imagined scenes. His uniquely humorous depictions of people are construct with an illustration board and hot glue and pieced together in an absurdly normal way. On this Grooms says, “I had always done these 3D things that you could walk through. They were always done off the seat of my pants without blueprints of course.”

Red Grooms was born, Charles Rogers Grooms, during the Great Depression in Nashville, TN. He went on to get his degree from the Art Institute of Chicago, before moving to New York City in 1956 where he regularly exhibited with Jim Dine, Claes Oldenburg, and Alex Katz.

He was given the nickname “Red” when he was working as a dishwasher at a restaurant in Provincetown while he was studying under, Hans Hofmann. In 1986, the film, Red Grooms: Sunflower in a Hothouse, was released to great critical acclaim.

Grooms continues to live and work in New York City where his works can be found in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art, and the Whitney Museum of American Art. His works can also be found in the Art Institute of Chicago, The Montgomery Museum of Fine Art, Carnegie Museum of Art, Cleveland Museum of Art, Knoxville Museum of Art, and the Cheekwood Botanical Garden and Museum of Art in his hometown of Nashville.