Red Grooms

1937

Masters of the Met, 2002

26” X 34”

Color Lithograph

Purchased with funding from the State of New York.  Perfect for Art Program, 2003.

My name is Sam Meyer, I am a graduate student in Baruch’s arts administration program.  Masters of the Met depicts several people in the Metropolitan Museum of Art observing and taking in the art.  Part of a series beginning in the 1970s, Grooms looks to depict a “novelistic portrait of Manhattan from Battery Park to Grant’s Tomb.”  In Masters of the Met, Grooms takes care to depict several pieces of art, but manages to make the people in the work as interesting, or even more interesting, to look at.  The people’s clothes feature large, colorful patterns, and a comic book style of painting.  There are people in groups on a tour, some using audio technology, some by themselves, and even a security guard to fill out the frame.  Many interpret Grooms’ message to be that if we take art too seriously, we will “miss out on the “abundance of aesthetic pleasures” all around us in our day-to-day lives.”  One can see that the art on the walls is not the only place to find art, even at a museum.