His satirical environmental installation The Discount Store was shown at VCU's Anderson Gallery in 1979. One of his biggest themes is the use of painting people, often using other artists or their styles to show his appreciation for their works. Mature work Regarding his large wall relief, William Penn Shaking Hands with the Indians (1967), based on a similarly titled painting by Benjamin West, Grooms remarked, "To tell the truth I did [the work] more because of Mr Benjamin West than Mr. Penn. Benjamin West is a hero for American Art. ... As I understand he set up the whole tableau for The Treaty on his estate using actors from a touring Shakespeare company Then he had an easel installed in the basket of a hot air balloon tethered at 60 feet, and with the help of sandwiches and birch beer hauled up to him by his wife, painted this great masterpiece in six days. To me, this is exemplary American behavior." Grooms's two most notable installations—The City of Chicago (1967) and Ruckus Manhattan (1975)—were enormously popular with the public. These works were executed in collaboration with then-wife, the artist Mimi Gross. Along with Gross, he starred in Mike Kuchar's Secret of Wendel Samson (1966), which tells the story of a closeted gay artist torn between two relationships. In the 1990s Grooms returned to his Tennessee roots, creating likenesses of 36 figures from Nashville history for the Tennessee Foxtrot Carousel (1998). Grooms' sculpture The Shootout, which depicts a cowboy and an Indian shooting at one another, drew protests by Native American activists when it was unveiled in Denver in 1982. The sculpture was evicted from two locations in downtown Denver after protesters threatened to deface it. In 1983 the sculpture was moved to the grounds of the Denver Art Museum, and now sits on the roof of the museum restaurant. Grooms commented "Denver is beginning to rival Grumpsville, Tennessee, as one of the great sourpuss towns." Other media Besides painting and sculpture, Grooms is also known for his prolific printmaking. He has experimented with numerous techniques, creating woodblock prints, spray-painted stencils, soft-ground etchings, and elaborate three-dimensional lithograph constructions. His 1973 purchase of a hot-glue gun facilitated several masterpieces of paper sculpture; for example, Sam, a portrait of Sam Reily who appeared in Fat Feet; and Gretchen's Fruit, a tour-de-force still life. In 1979, Grooms spent a week teaching at the