George Grosz - Berlin - New York - Between Vision and Reality: Theatrical and Political Works

The French Academy in Rome, directed by Richard Peduzzi, will host a magnificent exhibition dedicated to George Grosz on Tuesday, May 8, 2007, in the Galleries of the Villa Medici. On display for the first time in Italy, some two hundred drawings, watercolors, caricatures, illustrations, and paintings created between 1910 and 1959 will trace the German painter’s artistic and personal journey.

The works from the George Grosz Foundation in Munich, as well as from private collections overseas and major international museums, will be accompanied by a wealth of illustrated documentary material, books, photographs, and historical documents. Ralph Jentsch, curator of the exhibition and director of the George Grosz Foundation in Munich, presents a fascinating journey showcasing works—most of which have never been exhibited before, particularly those created before 1920—that illustrate the fundamental aspects of his work for the theater as well as his political works, from his youth in Berlin through the works he produced beginning in 1933, upon his move to the United States, until the end of his life—highlighting the simultaneously visionary and realistic nature of his work. His work itself follows two paths that, beyond appearances, prove to be complementary and intertwined: on the one hand, his artistic output— paintings and drawings with a polemical and expository nature, all aimed at satire and political and social criticism; on the other hand, his work for the theater—the scenes and tragic characters—which he interprets in an almost always modern way, reflecting the dramas of contemporary life.

The exhibition opens with drawings that George Grosz created starting at age 15 in Stolp, his hometown in Pomerania: artistic renderings, landscape watercolors, as well as grotesque and fantastical scenes. Next are the politically charged works from the Weimar Republic period, followed by drawings created during his time in the United States, illustrating the devastation wrought by Nazism in Germany and the war in Europe. Alongside these, the exhibition will also feature set designs and costumes created between 1919 and 1954 for plays by Bernard Shaw, Iwan Goll, George Kaiser, Paul Zach, Jaroslav Kašez, and others. The exhibition concludes with a selection of collages, foreshadowing the style of American Pop Art, and a wide range of illustrated materials, historical documents, and books.

THE ARTIST:

George Grosz was born in Berlin in 1893. He spent his childhood in Pomerania and studied art at the Royal Academy in Dresden and later in Berlin. His first drawing was published in 1910. He was drafted into the war against his will. First discharged and then re-enlisted, he spent the remainder of the war in various military hospitals. A German and later American draftsman and painter, he was a witness to his times: from World War I, to the failure of the German Revolution, and then the rise of Nazism, George Grosz created drawings that were a fierce attack on the established order. Through his art, he expressed his hatred for militarism, the clergy, and the bourgeoisie. His influence on today’s cartoonists is undeniable. In 1916, rejecting German nationalism, he changed his first name from Georg to George and his last name from Gross to Grosz. He spoke English as an act of defiance. His influences were diverse. His early work was marked by Jugendstil (Art Nouveau) and Italian Futurism, with its dynamism and visionary quality.

Next came his Dadaist period, during which he created photomontages and collages for the satirical publications he edited. After 1924, his painting was also described as “verist” in the sense of New Objectivity. His depictions of the most diverse urban settings—at once grotesque and frightening— the distortions of Expressionism and the simplification of childlike and folk art, as well as the superimposition of planes and visual effects—legacies of Cubism and Futurism—reinforce, through meticulous attention to detail, the sense of exaltation and hallucinatory vision inherent in his style. The product of a keen and almost cruel eye for observation, his caricatures and drawings were—and still are today—one of the most faithful depictions of 1920s Germany. In 1933, with the rise of National Socialism, Grosz was ostracized and labeled a “degenerate” artist. For this reason, among others, he decided to leave Germany and settle in New York; he devoted himself to teaching, and in 1938 he became a U.S. citizen. Although his artistic output during his time in the United States leaned toward what might be considered an “apolitical” stance (a large portion of the drawings and paintings from this period are, in fact, studies of nudes and landscapes), Grosz continued his lifelong battle against injustice and oppression, as evidenced by the political works—drawings, paintings, and watercolors—he created during the same period. In 1958, he returned to his homeland, and he died a year later.

THE BOOK:

To coincide with this exhibition, Skira Editore will publish a monograph on the artist in four languages (Italian, German, French, and English), titled “George Grosz. Berlin-New York,” edited by Ralph Jentsch. The volume will include more than five hundred illustrations, in color and black-and-white, as well as two critical essays—one by Enrico Crispolti on Grosz and Italy, and the other by Philippe Dagen on the artist’s American experience. The previously unpublished works from the exhibition at the Villa Medici will be included in the catalog.