George Grosz (; born Georg Ehrenfried Groß; July 26, 1893 – July 6, 1959) was a German artist known especially for his
caricatural drawings and paintings of
Berlin
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitu ...
life in the 1920s. He was a prominent member of the Berlin
Dada and
New Objectivity groups during the
Weimar Republic
The Weimar Republic (german: link=no, Weimarer Republik ), officially named the German Reich, was the government of Germany from 1918 to 1933, during which it was a Constitutional republic, constitutional federal republic for the first time in ...
. He immigrated to the United States in 1933, and became a naturalized citizen in 1938. Abandoning the style and subject matter of his earlier work, he exhibited regularly and taught for many years at the
Art Students League of New York
The Art Students League of New York is an art school at 215 West 57th Street in Manhattan, New York City, New York. The League has historically been known for its broad appeal to both amateurs and professional artists.
Although artists may st ...
. In 1959 he returned to Berlin, where he died shortly afterwards.
Early life
Grosz was born Georg Ehrenfried Groß in Berlin, Germany, the third child of a pub owner. His parents were devoutly
Lutheran
Lutheranism is one of the largest branches of Protestantism, identifying primarily with the theology of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German monk and reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practice of the Catholic Church launched ...
. Grosz grew up in the
Pomeranian town of
Stolp (now
Słupsk, Poland). After his father's death in 1900, he moved to the
Wedding district of Berlin with his mother and sisters.
At the urging of his cousin, the young Grosz began attending a weekly drawing class taught by a local painter named Grot. Grosz developed his skills further by drawing meticulous copies of the drinking scenes of
Eduard von Grützner, and by drawing imaginary battle scenes. He was expelled from school in 1908 for insubordination.
From 1909 to 1911, he studied at the
Dresden Academy of Fine Arts, where his teachers were
Richard Müller,
Robert Sterl, Raphael Wehle, and
Osmar Schindler.
His first published drawing was in the satirical magazine ''
Ulk'' in 1910.
From 1912 until 1917 he studied at the
Berlin College of Arts and Crafts under
Emil Orlik.
He began painting in oils in 1912.
In November 1914 Grosz volunteered for military service, in the hope that by thus preempting conscription he would avoid being sent to the front.
He was given a discharge after hospitalization for
sinusitis in 1915.
[Kranzfelder 2005, p. 15.] In 1916 he changed the spelling of his name to "de-Germanise" and internationalise his name – thus Georg became "George" (an English spelling), while in his surname he replaced the German "
ß" with its phonetic equivalent "sz". He did this as a protest against German nationalism
and out of a romantic enthusiasm for America
[Sabarsky 1985, p.250.] – a legacy of his early reading of the books of
James Fenimore Cooper,
Bret Harte
Bret Harte (; born Francis Brett Hart; August 25, 1836 – May 5, 1902) was an American short story writer and poet best remembered for short fiction featuring miners, gamblers, and other romantic figures of the California Gold Rush.
In a caree ...
and
Karl May – that he retained for the rest of his life. His artist friend and collaborator Helmut Herzfeld likewise changed his name to
John Heartfield at the same time.
In January 1917 Grosz was drafted for service, but in May he was discharged as permanently unfit.
Political engagement following the November Revolution
Following the
November Revolution in the last months of 1918, Grosz joined the
Spartacist League, which was renamed the
Communist Party of Germany
The Communist Party of Germany (german: Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands, , KPD ) was a major political party in the Weimar Republic between 1918 and 1933, an underground resistance movement in Nazi Germany, and a minor party in West German ...
(KPD) in December 1918. He was arrested during the
Spartakus uprising in January 1919, but escaped using fake identification documents. In 1920 he married Eva Peters.
In the same year he published a collection of his drawings, titled ''
Gott mit uns'' ("God with us"), a satire on German society. Grosz was accused of insulting the
army
An army (from Old French ''armee'', itself derived from the Latin verb ''armāre'', meaning "to arm", and related to the Latin noun ''arma'', meaning "arms" or "weapons"), ground force or land force is a fighting force that fights primarily on ...
, which resulted in a 300
German Mark
The Deutsche Mark (; English: ''German mark''), abbreviated "DM" or "D-Mark" (), was the official currency of West Germany from 1948 until 1990 and later the unified Germany from 1990 until the adoption of the euro in 2002. In English, it was ...
fine and the confiscation of the plates used to print the album.
Trip to Russia
In 1922 Grosz traveled to Russia with the writer
Martin Andersen Nexø
Martin Andersen Nexø (26 June 1869 – 1 June 1954) was a Danish writer. He was one of the authors in the Modern Breakthrough movement in Danish art and literature. He was a socialist throughout his life and during the second world war moved t ...
. Upon their arrival in
Murmansk they were briefly arrested as spies; after their credentials were approved, they were allowed to continue their journey. He met with several
Bolshevik
The Bolsheviks (russian: Большевики́, from большинство́ ''bol'shinstvó'', 'majority'),; derived from ''bol'shinstvó'' (большинство́), "majority", literally meaning "one of the majority". also known in English ...
leaders such as
Grigory Zinoviev,
Karl Radek, and
Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. ( 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin,. was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 1 ...
. He went with
Arthur Holitscher to meet
Anatoly Lunacharsky
Anatoly Vasilyevich Lunacharsky (russian: Анато́лий Васи́льевич Лунача́рский) (born Anatoly Aleksandrovich Antonov, – 26 December 1933) was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and the first Bolshevik Soviet People ...
with whom he discussed
Proletkult
Proletkult ( rus, Пролетку́льт, p=prəlʲɪtˈkulʲt), a portmanteau of the Russian words "proletarskaya kultura" (proletarian culture), was an experimental Soviet artistic institution that arose in conjunction with the Russian Revolut ...
. He rejected the concept of "proletarian culture", arguing that the term proletarian meant uneducated and uncultured. He regarded artistic talent as a "gift of the muses", which a person may be lucky enough to be born with.
Grosz's six-month stay in the Soviet Union left him unimpressed by what he had seen. He ended his membership in the KPD in 1923, although his political positions were little changed.
Later activities in Germany
According to Grosz's son
Martin Grosz, during the 1920s Nazi officers visited Grosz's studio looking for him, but because he was wearing a working man's apron Grosz was able to pass himself off as a handyman and avoid being taken into custody.
His work was also part of the
painting event in the
art competition at the
1928 Summer Olympics
The 1928 Summer Olympics ( nl, Olympische Zomerspelen 1928), officially known as the Games of the IX Olympiad ( nl, Spelen van de IXe Olympiade) and commonly known as Amsterdam 1928, was an international multi-sport event that was celebrated fro ...
.
In 1928 he was prosecuted for
blasphemy
Blasphemy is a speech crime and religious crime usually defined as an utterance that shows contempt, disrespects or insults a deity, an object considered sacred or something considered inviolable. Some religions regard blasphemy as a religio ...
after publishing
anticlerical drawings, such as one depicting prisoners under assault from a minister who vomits grenades and weapons onto them, and another showing Christ coerced into military service. According to historian David Nash, Grosz "publicly stated that he was neither Christian nor
pacifist
Pacifism is the opposition or resistance to war, militarism (including conscription and mandatory military service) or violence. Pacifists generally reject theories of Just War. The word ''pacifism'' was coined by the French peace campai ...
, but was actively motivated by an inner need to create these pictures", and was finally acquitted after two appeals. By contrast, in 1942 ''
Time
Time is the continued sequence of existence and event (philosophy), events that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various me ...
'' magazine identified Grosz as a pacifist.
Emigration to America
Bitterly anti-Nazi, Grosz left Germany shortly before Hitler came to power. In June 1932, he accepted an invitation to teach the summer semester at the
Art Students League of New York
The Art Students League of New York is an art school at 215 West 57th Street in Manhattan, New York City, New York. The League has historically been known for its broad appeal to both amateurs and professional artists.
Although artists may st ...
.
[Kranzfelder 2005, p. 93.] In October 1932, Grosz returned to Germany, but on January 12, 1933, he and his family emigrated to the United States. Grosz became a
naturalized citizen of the U.S. in 1938, and made his home in
Bayside, New York. In the 1930s he taught at the
Art Students League, where one of his students was
Romare Bearden, who was influenced by his style of
collage
Collage (, from the french: coller, "to glue" or "to stick together";) is a technique of art creation, primarily used in the visual arts, but in music too, by which art results from an Assemblage (art), assemblage of different forms, thus creat ...
. Grosz taught at the Art Students League until 1955. His other students included
Robert Cenedella, whom he mentored from 1957 to 1959.
In America, Grosz determined to make a clean break with his past, and changed his style and subject matter. He continued to exhibit regularly, and in 1946 he published his autobiography, ''
A Little Yes and a Big No''. In the 1950s he opened a private art school at his home and also worked as Artist in Residence at the
Des Moines Art Center. Grosz was elected into the
National Academy of Design
The National Academy of Design is an honorary association of American artists, founded in New York City in 1825 by Samuel Morse, Asher Durand, Thomas Cole, Martin E. Thompson, Charles Cushing Wright, Ithiel Town, and others "to promote the ...
as an Associate Academician in 1950. In 1954 he was elected to the
American Academy of Arts and Letters. Though he had U.S. citizenship, he resolved to return to Berlin, and relocated there in May 1959. He died there on July 6, 1959, from the effects of falling down a flight of stairs after a night of drinking.
Works
Although Grosz made his first oil paintings in 1912 while still a student,
[Kranzfelder 2005, p. 92.]
his earliest oils that can be identified today date from 1916.
By 1914, Grosz worked in a style influenced by
Expressionism
Expressionism is a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Northern Europe around the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it ra ...
and
Futurism, as well as by popular illustration,
graffiti
Graffiti (plural; singular ''graffiti'' or ''graffito'', the latter rarely used except in archeology) is art that is written, painted or drawn on a wall or other surface, usually without permission and within public view. Graffiti ranges from s ...
, and children's drawings.
Sharply outlined forms are often treated as if transparent. ''The City'' (1916–17) was the first of his many paintings of the modern urban scene. Other examples include the apocalyptic ''Explosion'' (1917),
''Metropolis'' (1917), and
''The Funeral'', a 1918 painting depicting a mad funeral procession. He settled in Berlin in 1918 and was a founder of the Berlin
Dada movement, using his satirical drawings to attack bourgeois supporters of the
Weimar Republic
The Weimar Republic (german: link=no, Weimarer Republik ), officially named the German Reich, was the government of Germany from 1918 to 1933, during which it was a Constitutional republic, constitutional federal republic for the first time in ...
.
[ Lawrence Gowing, ed., Biographical Encyclopedia of Artists, v.2 (Facts on File, 2005): 287]
His drawings, usually in pen and ink which he sometimes developed further with watercolor, frequently included images of Berlin and the Weimar Republic in the 1920s. Corpulent businessmen, wounded soldiers, prostitutes, sex crimes and orgies were his great subjects (for example, see
Fit for Active Service). His draftsmanship was excellent although the works for which he is best known adopt a deliberately crude form of caricature in the style of ''
Jugend''.
His ''oeuvre'' includes a few absurdist works, such as ''Remember Uncle August the Unhappy Inventor'' which has buttons sewn on it, and also includes a number of erotic artworks.
After his emigration to the USA in 1933, Grosz "sharply rejected
isprevious work, and caricature in general." In place of his earlier corrosive vision of the city, he now painted conventional nudes and many
landscape
A landscape is the visible features of an area of land, its landforms, and how they integrate with natural or man-made features, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal.''New Oxford American Dictionary''. A landscape includes the ...
watercolors. More acerbic works, such as ''
Cain, or Hitler in Hell'' (1944), were the exception. In his autobiography, he wrote: "A great deal that had become frozen within me in Germany melted here in America and I rediscovered my old yearning for painting. I carefully and deliberately destroyed a part of my past." Although a softening of his style had been apparent since the late 1920s, Grosz's work assumed a more sentimental tone in America, a change generally seen as a decline. His late work never achieved the critical success of his Berlin years.
[Joyce Wadler (August 27, 2001)]
The Heirs of George Grosz Battle His Dealer's Ghost; A Protracted Lawsuit Outlives Its Target, But Not Its Anger
''New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
''.
From 1947 to 1959, George Grosz lived in
Huntington, New York, where he taught painting at the Huntington Township Art League.
It is said by locals that he used what was to become his most famous painting,
''Eclipse of the Sun'', to pay for a car repair bill, in his relative penury. The painting was later acquired by house painter Tom Constantine
to settle a debt of $104.00. The
Heckscher Museum of Art in Huntington purchased the painting in 1968 for $15,000.00, raising the money by public subscription. As ''Eclipse of the Sun'' portrays the warmongering of arms manufacturers, this painting became a destination of protesters of the
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...
in Heckscher Park (where the museum is sited) in the late 1960s and early 70s.
In 2006, the Heckscher proposed selling ''Eclipse of the Sun'' at its then-current appraisal of approximately $19,000,000.00 to pay for repairs and renovations to the building. There was such public outcry that the museum decided not to sell, and announced plans to create a dedicated space for display of the painting in the renovated museum.
Legacy and estate
Grosz's art influenced other
New Objectivity artists such as
Heinrich Maria Davringhausen,
Anton Räderscheidt, and
Georg Scholz
Georg Scholz (October 10, 1890 – November 27, 1945) was a German painter, member of the New Objectivity movement.
Scholz was born in Wolfenbüttel and had his artistic training at the Karlsruhe Academy, where his teachers included Hans ...
. In the United States, the artists influenced by his work included the social realists
Ben Shahn and
William Gropper.
In 1960, Grosz was the subject of the Oscar-nominated short film ''
George Grosz' Interregnum
''George Grosz' Interregnum'' is a 29-minute-long documentary film about the artist George Grosz produced by Altina Carey and Charles Carey, and narrated by Lotte Lenya. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Short. The ori ...
''. He is fictionalized as "Fritz Falke" in
Arthur R.G. Solmssen's novel ''
A Princess in Berlin
''A Princess in Berlin'' is a 1980 historical novel by Arthur R.G. Solmssen.
Plot
Peter Ellis is a young American artist studying in Paris in 1922. His prominent Philadelphia family ends his funding to persuade him to return home to become a ...
'' (1980). In 2002, actor
Kevin McKidd portrayed Grosz in a supporting role as an eager artist seeking exposure in
''Max'', regarding
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Germany from 1933 until his death in 1945. He rose to power as the leader of the Nazi Party, becoming the chancellor in 1933 and the ...
's youth.
The Grosz estate filed a lawsuit in 1995 against the Manhattan art dealer
Serge Sabarsky, arguing that Sabarsky had deprived the estate of appropriate compensation for the sale of hundreds of Grosz works he had acquired. In the suit, filed in
State Supreme Court in Manhattan, the Grosz estate claims that Sabarsky secretly acquired 440 Grosz works for himself, primarily drawings and watercolors produced in Germany in the 1910s and 20s.
The lawsuit was settled in summer in 2006.
In 2003 the Grosz family initiated a legal battle against the
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues.
It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of t ...
in New York City, asking that three paintings be returned. According to documents, the paintings were sold to the Nazis after Grosz fled the country in 1933. The museum never settled the claim, arguing that a three-year
statute of limitations in bringing such a claim had expired. It is well documented that the Nazis stole thousands of paintings during World War II and many heirs of German painters continue to fight museums in order to reclaim such works.
George Grosz's younger son is jazz guitarist
Marty Grosz
Martin Oliver Grosz (born February 28, 1930) is an American jazz guitarist, banjoist, vocalist, and composer born in Berlin, Germany, the son of artist George Grosz. He performed with Bob Wilber and wrote arrangements for him. He has also worked ...
.
In 2015, Ralph Jentsch – the managing director of the Grosz estate since 1994 – co-founded a Berlin-based nonprofit organization dedicated to the artist. In 2022, the Little Grosz Museum (''Kleines Grosz Museum'') opened in Berlin's
Schöneberg district. Housed in a midcentury former gas station that was converted to a living space in 2008, the museum is funded by private donors and also houses a café and shop.
Quotes
* "My Drawings expressed my despair, hate and disillusionment, I drew drunkards; puking men; men with clenched fists cursing at the moon. ... I drew a man, face filled with fright, washing blood from his hands ... I drew lonely little men fleeing madly through empty streets. I drew a cross-section of tenement house: through one window could be seen a man attacking his wife; through another, two people making love; from a third hung a suicide with body covered by swarming flies. I drew soldiers without noses; war cripples with crustacean-like steel arms; two medical soldiers putting a violent infantryman into a strait-jacket made of a horse blanket ... I drew a skeleton dressed as a recruit being examined for military duty. I also wrote poetry." — George Grosz
[Friedrich, Otto (1986). Before the Deluge. USA: Fromm International Publishing Corporation. pp. 37. ]
See also
* ''
Jedermann sein eigner Fussball
''Jedermann sein eigner Fussball'' ("Everyman His Own Football") was a single-issue illustrated magazine published by Malik Verlag (Wieland Herzfelde's publishing house). The satirical tabloid was published on 15 February 1919; the German police ...
'', an artists' book by George Grosz and John Heartfield
*
Assoziation revolutionärer bildender Künstler, an association of German artists
*
List of German painters
This is a list of German painters.
A
> second column was into info box -->
* Hans von Aachen (1552–1615)
* Aatifi (born 1965)
* Karl Abt (1899–1985)
* Tomma Abts (born 1967)
* Andreas Achenbach (1815–1910)
* Oswald Achenbach (182 ...
Bibliography
* Bergius, Hanne Das Lachen Dadas. Die Berliner Dadaisten und ihre Aktionen. Gießen: Anabas-Verlag, 1989.
* Bergius, H. Montage und Metamechanik. Dada Berlin – Ästhetik von Polaritäten (mit Rekonstruktion der Ersten Internationalen Dada-Messe und Dada-Chronologie) Berlin: Gebr. Mann Verlag 2000.
* Bergius, H. Dada Triumphs! Dada Berlin, 1917–1923. Artistry of Polarities. Montages – Metamechanics – Manifestations. Translated by Brigitte Pichon. Vol. V. of the ten editions of Crisis and the Arts. The History of Dada, ed. by Stephen Foster, New Haven, Conn. u. a., Thomson/ Gale 2003.
* Grosz, George (1946). ''A Little Yes and a Big No''. New York: The Dial Press.
* Kranzfelder, Ivo (2005). ''George Grosz''. Cologne:
Taschen
Taschen is a luxury art book publisher founded in 1980 by Benedikt Taschen in Cologne, Germany. As of January 2017, Taschen is co-managed by Benedikt and his eldest daughter, Marlene Taschen.
History
The company began as Taschen Comics, ...
.
* Michalski, Sergiusz (1994). ''New Objectivity''. Cologne: Taschen.
* Sabarsky, Serge, editor (1985). ''George Grosz: The Berlin Years''. New York: Rizzoli.
* Schmied, Wieland (1978). ''Neue Sachlichkeit and German Realism of the Twenties''. London: Arts Council of Great Britain.
* Vogel, Carol (7 October 2006
"Peter M. Grosz, 80, Authority on Early German Aircraft, Dies" (obituary, Grosz's son) ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
''
* Walker, B., Zieve, K., & Brooklyn Museum. (1988). ''Prints of the German expressionists and their circle: Collection of the Brooklyn Museum''. New York: Brooklyn Museum.
References
Notes
External links
*
A collection of Grosz's paintings*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Grosz, George
George Grosz
1893 births
1959 deaths
20th-century American painters
American male painters
20th-century German painters
20th-century German male artists
German male painters
Artists from Berlin
Modern painters
German watercolourists
German Expressionist painters
German caricaturists
German Army personnel of World War I
Art Students League of New York faculty
German communists
German emigrants to the United States
German pacifists
Exiles from Nazi Germany
Political artists
Olympic competitors in art competitions
German dadaists
Members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters