Jan Groover

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Jan Groover
Born(1943-04-24)April 24, 1943
Plainfield, New Jersey
DiedJanuary 1, 2012(2012-01-01) (aged 68)
Montpon-Ménestérol
NationalityAmerican
EducationPratt Institute, Ohio State University
Known forPhotography

Jan Groover (April 24, 1943 – January 1, 2012) was an American photographer. She received numerous one-person shows, including at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, which holds some of her work in its permanent collection.

Early life[edit]

Groover was born and grew up in Plainfield, New Jersey.

She studied painting and drawing at Pratt Institute.[1] She received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1965 from Pratt Institute, and a Master of Arts in Education in 1970 from Ohio State University.[2]

Photographic career[edit]

Her first large-format camera was bought immediately after winning a 1978 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.[3] Groover was noted for her use of emerging color technologies. In 1979, she began to use platinum prints for portraits and to transform everyday items into formal still lifes. In 1987, critic Andy Grundberg noted in The New York Times, "In 1978 an exhibition of her dramatic still-life photographs of objects in her kitchen sink caused a sensation. When one appeared on the cover of Artforum magazine, it was a signal that photography had arrived in the art world - complete with a marketplace to support it."[4]

Groover also used early 20th century camera technology, such as the banquet camera, for elongated, horizontal presentations of otherwise pedestrian items. In a New York Times review of her work exhibited at Janet Borden Inc., New York, in 1997, critic Roberta Miller called Groover's work "beautiful and masterly in the extreme."[5]

Groover's work was the subject of a mid-career retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in 1987, for which an accompanying catalogue was printed. Her work has also been the subject of one-person exhibitions at the Baltimore Museum of Art; Cleveland Museum of Art; the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; and the International Museum of Photography, George Eastman House, Rochester, New York.[citation needed]

Groover was the subject of a short film by photographer Tina Barney entitled (Jan Groover: Tilting at Space, 1994).


Groover and her husband, a painter and critic named Bruce Boice, left the United States and moved to Montpon-Ménestérol, France in 1991. She had felt demoralized by what she felt was a turn toward deep political conservatism in the United States. On this occasion, Groover purchased a larger camera and shifted her work from still-life photographs of everyday objects to photos of her surroundings in France, including landscapes, churches, and graveyards.[3]

She died in 2012, having been ill for some time.

Awards[edit]

Publications[edit]

  • New York: Neuberger Museum, State University of New York at Purchase, 1983.
  • Groover, Jan. Jan Groover: Photographs. New York: Museum of Modern Art.
  • Kismaric, Susan and Jan Groover. Jan Groover. New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1987.
  • Groover, Jan. Pure Invention—The Tabletop Still Life. Washington: Smithsonian Institution, 1990.
  • Groover, Jan. Jan Groover: Photographs. Boston: Little, Brown, 1993.
  • Franck, Tatyana, ed. Jan Groover, Photographer: Laboratory of Forms. Zurich: Scheidegger & Spiess; Lausanne: Musée de l’Elysée, 2019. Accompanies the related exhibition at Musée de l’Elysée, Lausanne, September 18, 2019 – January 5, 2020.[7]

Exhibitions[edit]

Collections[edit]

Groover's work is held in the permanent collections of the Amon Carter Museum of American Art,[12] the Museum of Modern Art, New York,[13] and the Museum of Fine Arts Houston.[14]

References[edit]

  1. ^ Groover, Jan (1990). Pure invention--the tabletop still life (1st ed.). Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press. ISBN 1560980052. OCLC 23017651.
  2. ^ "Artist Biographies, The Cleveland Museum of Art". Archived from the original on December 4, 2012. Retrieved 2007-12-11.
  3. ^ a b Jan Groover, Postmodern Photographer, Dies at 68. The New York Times. Accessed August 31, 2016.
  4. ^ "Photography View; Taming Unruly Reality." The New York Times. Accessed January 7, 2012.
  5. ^ "Exhibition Review", The New York Times. Accessed January 7, 2012.
  6. ^ "Guggenheim Foundation Announces 1978 Awards". The New York Times. 2 April 1978.
  7. ^ Groover, Jan (11 September 2019). Jan Groover, photographer : laboratory of forms. Franck de Maud'huy, Tatyana, Allain, Jean-François, Klebetsanis, Stephanie, Cunningham, Matthew (Translator), Musée de l'Elysée (Lausanne, Switzerland). Zurich. ISBN 978-3-85881-838-6. OCLC 1109769008.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  8. ^ "Exhibitions - 1980s - Library". 26 December 2013. Retrieved 2020-04-23.
  9. ^ Nancy Drysdale Gallery promotional flyer (Jan Grover Artist File, VMFA Library)
  10. ^ Stevan, Caroline (2018-04-20). "Sur la route de Jan Groover". Le Temps (in French). ISSN 1423-3967. Retrieved 2019-12-18.
  11. ^ Gobbo, Stéphane (2019-09-20). "Au Musée de l'Elysée, la photographe Jan Groover en ses ruptures". Le Temps (in French). ISSN 1423-3967. Retrieved 2019-12-18.
  12. ^ "Amon Carter Museum of American Art". Amon Carter Museum of American Art. Retrieved October 26, 2020.
  13. ^ "Jan Groover". The Museum of Modern Art. Retrieved 2020-04-23.
  14. ^ "Jan Groover: Untitled (#75.4)". mfah.org.
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