Predating the Pop Art movement, the art of Red Grooms is inspired by American culture, both academic and popular. Humor is essential to Grooms’ art, as in this imagined, comic book-like portrait of Willem de Kooning, riding off on a bicycle while carrying one of his “paintings” from the Woman series. Here, Grooms transforms the traditionally flat lithographic print into a three-dimensional, sculptural form.

Between 1955 and 1957, Grooms studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago; George Peabody College for Teachers in Nashville; the New School for Social Research in New York; and the Hans Hoffman School of Fine Arts in Provincetown. Grooms was steadfast in his desire to make figurative works, and dropped out halfway through the course with Hoffman, an important contributor to Abstract Expressionism. Grooms has been awarded numerous grants and awards, including the Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Academy of Design in New York.