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Colorful, freely painted watercolor of lawn tennis players in a game of doubles, with onlookers sitting at outdoor tables beside the clubhouse.  The painting is in the typical style of John Groth, an American illustrator who worked in a loose, sketchy style he called “speed line,” stressing light and motion, not details.

John August Groth was a painter and illustrator best known for his sports and war subjects.  Born in Chicago, he studied at the Art Institute of Chicago.  He was discovered at the age of 25 by Arnold Gingrich, founding editor of Esquire magazine, who happened upon Groth’s work at an outdoor art fair and hired Groth to fill out the first issue with 17 pages of illustrations and gave him the title of art director.  Groth held that position for the next four years, until he left Chicago for New York.  From the beginning, Groth gravitated toward depictions of men in action, in a style he called "speed line," in which he made gestural line renderings based on on-site sketches and fleshed out the form with freely brushed watercolors. 

His sporting subjects included everything from boxing and baseball, to unusual sports from farflung corners of the world as depicted in his book John Groth’s World of Sport (1970).  This work featured his illustrations of 43 international sports that are each part of a particular regional folk culture, such as Thai kite fighting and an assortment of chaotic and dangerous contests involving men on horseback in the Middle East, Asia and Africa.  An adventurous spirit, Groth was an artist-correspondent during World War II, the Korean and Vietnam wars, drawing battlefield scenes from sketches made on site, and impressing no less than Ernest Hemingway, who said: “He gets to the essence of war.”  Yet he was by all accounts a nonviolent man and was among the artists attending the First Congress of American Artists Against War and Fascism in 1936, along with Stuart Davis, Peter Blume and Margaret Bourke-White.  In 1945, he published Studio: Europe, a collection of drawings made during World War II with an introduction by Hemingway.  This book included front line battle scenes, villages, and Picasso’s studio.  Groth’s works are in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery, the U.S. Army Center of Military History and the Naval Historical Center in Washington, the United States Air Force Collection, as well as the National Art Museum of Sport, Indianapolis.

Condition: Generally very good, the colors bright and well preserved, with only minor overall toning and light edge wear. Some minor glue residue and abrasion top margin verso from previous mounting.

References:

“Arnold Friedman.” AskArt.com.  http://www.askart.com/artist/F/arnold_aaron_friedman.asp?ID=29165 (20 April 2004).

Groth, John, Pat Smith and Arnold Gingrich.  John Groth’s World of Sport.  New York: Winchester Press, 1970. pp. 5-10, 36-39, 150.

"John Groth." National Art Museum of Sport.  http://www.namos.iupui.edu/artists/groth.htm (3 March 2003).

“John Groth.” United States Air Force Collection. http://www.afapo.hq.af.mil/artists/artistsdetail.cfm?Letter=G&value=251 (20 April 2004).

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