Charles Roger "Red" Grooms (American/Tennessee, b.1937) early ink, watercolor, and gouache on paper bust portrait painting of a woman attired in a pink blouse and coordinating pink hat against a plain background, rendered with colorful watercolor and dark contrasting gouache with ink outlines. Signed and dated "Red Grooms 55" upper right corner. Float mounted in a carved Rococo-style frame. Sight: 12 1/4" H x 9" W. Framed: 19" H x 16" W. Note: This extremely early painting by Nashville native Red Grooms would likely have been executed when Grooms was 18 and enrolled at the Art Institute of Chicago. He would go on to study at the New School in New York, Peabody College in Nashville, and Hans Hoffman's school in Provincetown, Mass. before abandoning formal art education altogether and embarking on the colorful and often satirical cultural commentaries for which he is best known. Grooms was honored with the National Academy of Design's Lifetime Achievement Award in 2003 and he was the subject of a 1984 mid-career retrospective exhibition held at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Grooms's work can be found in public collections across the United States, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, as well as in many international museums. (Biographical information from the Johnson Collection).

Slight horizontal crease along the center, very slight creasing at corners. Some overall toning and darker toning near edges. Tape residue en verso from old hinge mounting.