George Grosz

George Grosz , born the July 26th 1893 with Berlin and deceased the July 6th 1959 with Berlin, is a German painter, who was one of the members important of the movement dadaïste and the left wing of the movement of the Nouvelle Objectivity.

It is allowed in 1909 with the royal academy of arts of Dresden (Königlichen Kunstakademie Dresden). From 1912 to 1917, it joined the school of the fine arts of Berlin (Kunstgewerbeschule) where he is the pupil of Emil Orlik (1870-1932).

Born Georg Groß , it changed name to demolish German connotation of its name (what also did his/her friend and collaborator Helmut Herzfeld, which changed its name for John Heartfield at the same time).

Enlisted in the army in 1914 in a pomegranate regiment, Grosz was exempted for health reason after two years of service, officially because of an affection of the sines, but more probably because of a fragile mental health which it ammena to spend some time in a military psychiatric hospital.

Grosz was stopped during the insurrection spartakist in January 1919, but managed to escape thanks to false documents from identity. It joined the German Communist party (KPD) little time afterwards.

Grosz practices the caricatural exaggeration, and shows with an extreme verism, the state of the world of the post-war period. It borrows from futuristic and the dadaïstes, the dynamic and feverish representation of the big cities, in particular in its emblematic work Dédicace in Oskar Panizza of 1917/18.

In 1921, Grosz is shown of insult to the army and condemned to a fine of 300 Marks, while the unit Gott put ones ( God with us ), a satyric work with respect to the German company, is destroyed. Grosz leaves the KPD in 1922 after having spent five months to Russia and having met Lénine and Trotsky, because of its opposition to the dictatorial character of the Soviet mode.

See too

To paint the Century 101 major Portraits 1900-2000

Quotations

“The artist of today, if he does not want to turn to vacuum, being a last failure of mode, can choose only between the technique and propaganda for the class struggle. In both cases, it must give up the pure art . ” George Grosz

Some works

Dedication in Oskar Panizza , (1917 /1918), oil on fabric, 140 X 110 cm, Staatgalerie Stuttgart
Pillars of the company , (1926), oil on fabric, 200 X 108 cm, Nationalgalerie, Berlin
republican Automats , (1920), watercolour, feather and Indian ink on paperboard, 60 X 47,3 cm, The Metropolitan Museum off Art, New York

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