Red Grooms: The Forgotten Existentialist Ruckus Manhattan and the Influence of Sartrian Existentialism

This thesis focuses on the influence of the writings of Jean-Paul Sartre on the American artist Red Grooms. An analysis of Grooms\u27s sculpto-pictorama Ruckus Manhattan as an installation demonstrates the influences of Sartrian existential concepts and acts as an arena in which viewers can discover these existential ethos in a culturally specific setting. Red Grooms\u27s background as an American artist working in New York in the mid-twentieth centuryand his interest in French art and philosophy document further the influence of existentialism on Grooms. A thorough discussion of tableaux from Ruckus Manhattan, which visually represent Sartiran existential concepts, reveals Grooms to be an artist who is much more sophisticated than the comic artist described in the current scholarship