George Grosz

George Grosz 1893-1959

German-American draughtsman and painter, born in Berlin. Studied drawing at the Dresden Academy 1909-11 and at the School of Arts and Crafts in Berlin 1912-14; also for several months in 1913 at the Atelier Colarossi in Paris. Served in the army 1914-15 and again briefly in 1917, but spent the rest of the war in Berlin where he made violently anti-war drawings, and drawings and paintings attacking the social corruption of Germany (capitalists, prostitutes, the Prussian military caste, the middle class). Played a prominent role in the Berlin Dada movement 1917-20 and collaborated with John Heartfield and Raoul Hausmann in the invention of photomontage. First one-man exhibition at the Galerie Hans Goltz, Neue Kunst in Munich 1920. Many of his drawings were published in albums (Gott mit uns, Ecce Homo, Der Spiesser-Spiegel etc.), and he was subject to prosecutions for insulting the army and blasphemy. Visited the USA in 1932 to teach at the Art Students League, New York, and settled there 1933. In the latter part of his career he tried to establish himself as a pure painter of landscapes and still life, but also painted many compositions of an apocalyptic and deeply pessimistic kind. Returned to Berlin in 1958, but died there a few months later.

George Grosz is one of the principal artists associated with the Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity) movement, along with Otto Dix and Max Beckmann, and was a member of the Berlin Dada group. After observing the horrors of war as a soldier in World War I, Grosz focused his art on social critique. He became deeply involved in left wing pacifist activity, publishing drawings in many satirical and critical periodicals and participating in protests and social upheavals. His drawings and paintings from the Weimar era sharply criticize what Grosz viewed as the decay of German society. Shortly before Hitler seized power, Grosz moved to America to teach art and thus avoided Nazi persecution when his work was deemed “degenerate.” His later style changed sharply due to his loss of faith in humanity, shifting from political propaganda to caricatures of the inhabitants of New York City and romantic landscapes. The traumatic experiences that drove George Grosz to rally against war, corruption, and what he saw as an immoral society created a particularly affecting and indelible artistic legacy. As a symbol of the revolution in Germany, his art was instrumental in awakening the general public to the reality of government oppression.

George Grosz honed his skill for satire in his early illustrations of Berlin night-life while still an art student. He combined his skill for draughtsmanship with the influence of Cubist and Futurist modes of representing space to create an individual, yet objective social-realist style that could accurately convey his critical vision of contemporary society.

The figures that inhabit Grosz’s art are typically not specific individuals, but rather allegorical figures representative of the different classes and the various plights of German society between the world wars. The use of allegory allowed Grosz to present a biting critique of this society without straying too far from the ideal of portraying a modern vision of reality.

Grosz synthesized two distinct and long-standing traditions within German art history with his own perspective to create his unique style. Combining the linear quality of the historic graphic tradition with German Gothic art’s penchant for brutally grotesque imagery, Grosz utilized these traditional modes to add further emphasis to his contemporary moral perspective.

Grosz’s most critical works are typically executed in pen and ink, and occasionally he worked into them with watercolors. Many of his drawings were reproduced in periodicals and journals, which circulated Grosz’s images among various radical groups and the working class. The immediacy of these drawings and their reproductions allowed them to clearly convey Grosz’s commentary on the modern world to a more diverse audience than a singular painting in a gallery or museum could.