One of the most under-rated artists of the last half century is Red Grooms, who reached his peak in the 7os. I didn't pay much attention to him until recently because I thought he couldn't draw, and was too sloppy. That was really stupid of me because, more than any other painter of his time, he managed to encapsulate and comment on the spirit of his age.
His life-size, walk-through subway sculptures (above) are some of the best art done anywhere in the 70s.
This (above) is a great depiction of a New York subway station! The subway car has no wall facing our side so we can see the people inside. Wearing their white disco boots, weird hair-dos, Superfly hats, etc., they calmly ride a marvel of engineering back to their homes where they can relax with "The Beverly Hillbillies" and a TV dinner.
Grooms was an alert to the contrasts that you find on the streets of American cities. It's a combination of exuberant and vibrant life with gritty technology and bizarre architecture.
How did grooms do it!? You can fault his drawing, but I don't think anything approaching realism could have captured the claustrophobic, funky, ugly but beautiful feeling of the urban street (above) in those times.
Actually, I think Grooms is a good draughtsman. Two commenters, Stephen and Anonymous, said that his drawing style reminded them of Paul Cadmus (above). You could add Reginald Marsh and Robert Crumb to the list. Hans says the pictures remind him of Ralph Bakshi's style.
He frequently portrayed vast panoramas and drastic perspectives (above) on stand-up brick shapes.
Here's (above) a Grooms deli. Somehow he managed to get across how much fun it is to watch people and talk to friends in a busy, big city restaurant. He even calls our attention to the idea of vinyl padded booth seats, and formica tables which are two of the over-looked delights of modern living. They're probably an American invention.
Here's a New York bohemian bar. Boy, does it look inviting! Grooms is accused buy his detractors of dwelling on the grotesque, but just as often his work is a love letter to the city he obviously has great affection for.
He did a lot of bookstore pictures. He wisely realized that books and ideas are two of the engines that make modern cities so much fun to live in.
17 comments:
Gee Whiz, I never heard of this guy. Well, ne'er too late to learn ...
I have some of the same misgivings and mixed feelings about grooms. Its a bit like, "Wow! Now imagine if the guy only had TALENT"
Well of course, if his technique was better, there would be less style and idiosyncracy and charm. But I always thought his work missed an opportunity to go over better. And there is a certain skill level to being able to scrounge up patronage to make such large scale works possible. Its the funny old conundrum we know is showing the ignorance of the behloder, but seems apropos to say..."My Five Year Old can Draw better than that"
Sure, but can he make a paper mache merry-go-round and make a living at it? Can he get craftsmen to mass produce his refrigerator drawings?
There are strengths. Strengths that might be considered defects, thats the trick. Color (clashing) Compositional imagination to make things busy (unreadable). Crossing lines of taste and perception. Making things intentionally hard to read to draw people in. (no negative space)
Its very lumpy. It always gives the impression of an attempt at complexity, that someone may have wadded up or stepped on.
Should they be displayed in a Gaudy Building? A Frank Geary designed museum? Would you get motion sick or nauseous, or instead revel in how ordered you yourself might seem in comparison?
Compare and contrast with a Ralph Bakshi movie. Bakshis intent vs the product brought forth by many hands. The power of Just Doing It.
Grooms' image of the crowded eating place resembles somewhat the late paintings of Paul Cadmus. The style Red Grooms favored is defined as a "Chicago" style, partly for its sheer crudity. City of the Big Shoulders, Hog Butcher of the World, indeed!
Saw an expansive Crumb exhibit at the Frye in Seattle a while ago...probably one of the best, most insane exhibits I've ever seen. I see where you draw the connection.
I agree about the resemblance to Paul Cadmus.
http://americangallery.blogspot.com/2008/02/paul-cadmus-1904-1999.html
I wonder if this tradition in American painting goes back to people like George Bellows? What do you think, Eddie?
Hans: That's a perfect summary of the way I used to think about Grooms. See the new material to see if you agree with the reasons why I changed my mind.
Stephen: Thanks! I incorporated that Cadmus picture into a new version of the article!
Sort of an urban answer to Grandma Moses. Both exhibit similar genuine affection for subject and no particular interest in advanced technique. Grooms has a folk art quality and is plainly about plain folks. Grooms is obviously more capable technically. He at least utilizes depth, and his faces are interesting.
Thank you very much, I was completely unaware of this artist before. His work is a great demented, gleeful cacophony, I love it!
After 2 cups of coffee I see less reason for the Grandma Moses comparison, but anyway, that bookstore picture is another full-size installation. That particular shot flattens it into a painting. Too bad the picture is so small. Lack of scale and depth alters impact. He should be on a Viewmaster disc. Here's more angles:
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/03/09/nyregion/09artswe-450.jpg
http://www.hrm.org/exhibits/Grooms/The-Bookstore-79--08.jpg
I had another thought, Eddie. Do you think you could argue that a few (too few!) painters in the 20th century were influenced by cartoonists?
I know if we look at the 18th century, we see someone like Hogarth is pretty much an anomaly. He appealed more to literary types like the great German writer Georg Lichtenberg and the French poet Charles Baudelaire.
In the 19th century, Daumier influenced more than just his fellow cartoonists, though. I can imagine Delacroix studying some of Daumier's works. But cartoonists still were associated more with writers: the great Hablot Knight Browne, aka 'Phiz', is one of my favourite cartoonists from the 19th century, and we associate him with Dickens. Same goes for people like Max Beerbohm and Edward Lear, authors who also happened to be artists (and cartoonists to boot!)
In the 20th century, I'd have thought that we'd have seen more cartoonists influencing painters, but that doesn't seem to be the case. Picasso had a Virgil Partch book on his bedside table when he died, and his work is sometimes cartoony. Cadmus and Grooms show some characteristics of cartooniness. Some of the other mid-century painters like Otto Dix and Georg Grosz do also. I wonder if cartoonists weren't overlooked because they became the realists of the age, paying attention to the details and foibles of everyday life while painters moved into abstraction and stylization? Still, it's a shame there wasn't more overlap between the two.
(You could also argue that certain 20th century cartoonists mastered 'Old Master' skills better than their 'fine art' contemporaries: George Herriman's technique, at his best, compares with Rembrandt's etchings, in my opinion. )
Looks like something from Ka-Blam!
Stephen: Interesting points! I didn't know that Picasso read Virgil Parch! I wonder what Parch would have thought of that?
I used to agonize about whether cartooning was fine art, and now I've arrived at an answer and made my peace with the problem. It definitely is.
In my opinion cartooning is fine art when it's done as well as John K, Milt Gross, Don Martin or Herriman does it, when they're at their best. When it crosses the line and merges with traditional easel painting as it does with Dix, the result is weird and difficult to categorize, but it's still fine art, and IMO will be considered as such in the future.
Wondering if cartooning can be fine art is like wondering if chamber music can ever be called classical music, the way symphonies can. Of course it can. It's just a different type. I wouldn't compare Rubens' Crucifiction with John K's "Waiter Wearing a Funny Hairpiece at Solly's Deli", but they're both fine art, just in different ways, and in different categories.
Stephen: I don't know if it's because I always sought them out, but it seems to me that there were actually quite a few cartoon-influenced painters in the 20th century. Just to name a few: Philip Guston, Peter Saul, Kenny Scharf, Jim Nutt.
And the above are all "art world" artists. We're not even getting into Robert Williams and his bunch.
We live in New York City, and when our son was little the Whitney Museum had a major Red Grooms RUCKUS RETROSPECTIVE (RUCKUS is what he calls his diplays: Ruckus Manhattan, Ruckus Rodeo, etc) and we took his school to see it. Needless to say the kids LOVED it and related to it (looking as it did like many of the scenes and people we had just passed on our way to the Whitney.) I had more trouble with the art, though, as it seemed so gargantuan and crude. But the more I walked around it and through it, the more my preconceived notion of color and form fell from my prejudiced view, and was replaced by the thrill of being in front of a new vision - - an individual artist relating an observational story told in an original and specific way. Ever since then, whenever Red exhibits in New York, we make it a point to go. And more often than not, I have to tip my hat and go "yeah" when confronted with those original shapes and brush strokes. He really is an artist who is best represented in 360.
I love it when I see someone walk up to a piece in a museum (often a favorite of mine perhaps) and look puzzled and disgusted at what they misunderstand in front of them. Its almost as good an experience as seeing the artwork itself.
Sometimes I think it must be very frustrating being an art book publisher, because despite your best technical attempts, you realize what you are showing is a dull reproduction compared to seeing the piece in person.
Once I was at the Museum Of Modern Art loving a large Picasso I'd always wanted to see in person (Woman Drawing In Front Of A Mirror http://www.allposters.com/-sp/Woman-Drawing-in-Front-of-Mirror-Posters_i1521266_.htm) thinking "wow! It's amazing how he paints these hermtically sealed universes that respond to the rules of his own invention etc." when suddenly from behind me I hear a tourist say to his friend "what a sick bastard!" I laughed out loud. Yeah, but is it art?
I was just reading this book on New York art called "The Disappearance of Objects". Those pieces remind me a lot of Oldenburg's The Street exhibit, which took up most of the first chapter. Oldenburg took cardboard, trashed newspaper, chunks of old wood, street signs, etc. and formed them into these walk-around sculptures of the Manhattan streets outside.
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