| Masterpiece Theatre To a Chicago Designer, Home is a Mini Museum of Paint by Numbers Art
By L. Edwards
You might not expect to find an art gallery on the 25th floor of a residential high-rise on the North side of Chicago. But that's what Robert Groos has created. In his small, one-bedroom apartment, Groos has assembled a huge collection of Paint by Number paintings - 135 pieces to date, and still counting. It's a vertiable Museum of Postmodern Art, filled with clowns, collies, horse heads, ballerinas, floral bouquets, bluejays, beaches, snowbanks and other images near and dear to the heart of the Paint by Numbers aficianado. "And I do consider it artwork," Groos says, proving once again-and with all due respect-that beauty is definitely in the eye
of the beholder.
Surprisingly, Groos had his first brush with Paint by Numbers artwork only three years
ago. "Some friends had an antiques store in Chicago," says the 34-year-old collector, "and
they decided to have a Paint by Numbers exhibition in their shop. They held it as though it
was an art gallery opening, sent out invitations, billed it as 'the First Annual'and all that. It
was wonderful. That's where I made my first purchases-the three dog paintings, which
hang in a row in the bedroom near my closet. And when my friends ended up going out of
business, I bought maybe five or six more. It was then that I began to think they were
interesting objects to collect."
As often happens to a budding collector, Groos's friends began jumping on the
bandwagon, bringing him paintings from all over the country-which was a lucky break,
because Chicago proved to have a limited bounty. Before he knew it, Groos was
overwhelmed. He now has such a large cache of homey masterpieces that he can't display
them all at once. So he decided, as any good curator does, to keep the best paintings in
rotation.
Groos chose his bedroom as the main viewing space, painted it light blue and assembled
the paintings in groups. He works according to theme: animals on one wall, birds and
flowers on another, winter scenes during Christmas season, etc. And he does so with the
skill and share:) eye of a designer-which is exactly what he is. For the past eight years,
he's worked as a visual merchandiser, arranging mannequins, windows and floor displays
for Bloomingdale's in Chicago.
"There's a contradiction to having this gigantic collection displayed in a very formal way in
my home," he says in his sweet, soft-spoken manner. "It always takes people completely
off guard. There's an element of whimsy to it."
You might expect that, by its very nature, all Paint by Numbers art would have the same
style. But it's surprising how much the paintings differ from one another. That's one of
the reasons Groos considers them art. We may not be talking Picasso here, but, as he
points out, "There's a real skill level and personal approach involved." Some of the pieces
have been done very meticulously, with the painter staying exactly in line, while others are
done in a loose, almost sloppy manner. Groos doesn't necessarily prefer the more
polished efforts. In fact, his favorite painting is one of his most primitive.
"There's a painting that has six birds flying around a birdhouse," he says. "The
perspective is very freaky. It's all off and incredibly naive. For some reason, I never get
tired of looking at it-which is why it's right at eye level by my bed."
Although Groos has never dabbled in the art himself, he does possess a painting by his
great-grandmother. "She did a Paint by Numbers painting for each of her grandchildren
and signed them before she died," he says. "A few years ago, my mother gave me hers.
It's a picture of a horse by a white fence. It sits on the floor. It's the only one I have
by a family member and it's important to me."
Over the years, Groos has become something of an armchair art historian; he's worked to
fill the blanks in the Paint by Numbers story. And he's developed a sense of the paintings'
relative worth on the market. He figures that the first kits were produced during World
War II, "as a way for people to lose themselves." The earliest kits came with the pictures
printed on canvas, while the later ones were printed on cardboard-this is one of the ways
Groos determines their age.
"Some are signed by the artist," he says, "and sometimes on the back there's an indication
of the date or the time spent doing the actual painting. This is something that adds a lot of
intrigue and personality to a particular piece."
According to Gross, the best specimens usually come from the Craft Master Company,
which produced Paint by Number paintings since, at least, the '50s. Groos has been lucky
to find a few Craft Master catalogs in his travels, which have helped him trace the general
dates of some of the work he owns.
"Craft Master was the best," he says, enthusiastically. "They would sell you everything
you needed to finish the paintingfrom the paint to the brushes to the canvas to the frame.
They even had sections of their catalogs that showed different ways to display the work
when you finished. It's,a riot. Sometimes they even took actual I photographs of people
and turned them into paintings. If you can locate one of those-I only have one-that's an
extreme find. Also, Craft Master broke the painting down into more detail than the other
companies did. The newer ones seem to be a little flatter."
As it turns out, Paint by Numbers art is not the only thing Groos collects. His apartment is
filled with many other vintage goodies: classic toys, Vernon Kilns dinnerware, '50s
furniture and a pink polka-dot chenille bedspread. One of his prized possessions is a
black-and-white kitchen table with amazing scrollwork and all three of its original leaves-
"which comes in handy," he says. "I have a big family." (For the record, Groos bought
the table from a friend whose grandmother had been folding laundry on it in the basement.)
While he doesn't paint by numbers himself, Groos is an artist in his own right. It's his
work that fills the remaining space of his apartment, particularly the living room. Over the
past decade, he has developed a series of boxes, sculptures and collages that are
reminiscent of the artist Joseph Cornell.
"Cornell is a definite influence," he agrees. "I work with what most people would consider
garbage, but I hope to resurrect the pieces, recycle them. I work primarily with design and
color, especially red. I have an affinity for red."
Groos incorporates a lot of objects he gets from his family into his work. "The people in
my family are pack rats and save everything on earth," he says, proving, once again, that
collecting seems to run in the genes.
One of his favorite pieces, entitled "SelfPortrait with Mr. Cushing," began with an old
checkerboard he found in his mother's house, which she'd had since she was a child. "It's
difficult to see what that piece is all about," he says, modestly. "Next to the image of Mr.
Cushing is a tambourine and two cross-sections of a brain, and then there's a transparency
of a screaming mouth. That's kind of the pivotal thing. But there's this whole feeling of
tension and movement coming about, sort of like a game."
Groos points out a pyramid of old German suitcases sitting in a corner. Ever conscious of
his well-designed surroundings, he keeps his art materials neatly inside them, all organized
by category. The top suitcases contain paper, others hold buttons and pieces of metal, etc.
"I don't have much space here," he says, "so the suitcases help me hide my materials in an
aesthetic way.
Groos has sold quite a few of his pieces over the years, and although he denies that his
work has any literal meaning, it strongly evokes elements of childhood and nostalgia, just
as his Paint by Number paintings do.
"Although I was born in 1962," Groos says, "I'm really fond of the whole '50s era. I
can't explain why. I'm drawn to the bold patterns and color. And I love the charm of the
Paint by Numbers imagery. It's something I associate only with the United States,
nowhere outside it. Ultimately, I guess that's why I like it. I find it all very American."
This article is reprinted from the Summer 1997 issue of Collectibles Flea Market Finds Magazine. |