?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 600 - $ 900
JOHN GROTH. Action! * "Jockey Room at Belmont Park." Together, 2 illustrations. Ink and watercolor on thick paper. The first, 432x660 mm; 17x26 inches with wide (3-inch) margins. The second, 432x635 mm; 17x24 inches. Both signed in lower left image, the second dated 1947, with penciled notations on verso. Light soiling in margins.
Groth (1908-1988) was the first Art Director of Esquire. Before that position, he served as a WWII correspondent and spent much of his time with Ernest Hemingway. His peculiar loose gestural style was described by Hemingway in the introduction to Groth's book, "Studio: Europe" (New York: Vanguard Press, 1945): "None of us understood the sort of shorthand he sketched in. The men would look at the sketches and see just a lot of lines. It was a great pleasure to find what fine drawings they were when we got to see them." Groth was inducted into the Society of Illustrator's Hall of Fame in 2004.
