Memphis On My Mind
Artist
Red Grooms
(American, b. 1937)
Date2015
MediumEnamel on epoxy
Dimensions51 x 40 x 5 in. (129.5 x 101.6 x 12.7 cm)
ClassificationsSculpture
Credit LineCommissioned by Memphis Brooks Museum of Art; funds provided by the Halliday family in memory of their parents, Mr. and Mrs. William P. Halliday, Jr.; 100 Gifts for 100 Years, 1916-2016
Object number2015.29
CommentaryIn 2014, Grooms spent four days visiting Memphis to conduct research for Memphis on My Mind. Besides visiting sites around the city and northern Mississippi, he bought books about the region to help him develop the subjects of the relief. He chose iconic people (W. C. Handy, Memphis Minnie, and Boss Crump), subjects (the Mississippi River, sanitation workers strike, Peabody ducks, and sharecroppers), as well as musicians (Isaac Hayes and his “solid gold Cadillac” and Elvis Presley performing at the Overton Park Shell), and the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art. He also included himself as a teenager when he rode his bicycle from Nashville to Memphis with his friend Ed Beerman.
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