Description

George Grosz 1919 Original Ink Drawing ‘Den Macht uns keiner nach’

Original 1919 ink study ‘Den Macht uns keiner nach’ on medium weight paper

Handsigned lower right

Sheet measures 23 x 17 cm (9.2″ x 6.8″)

This drawing, estimated to be a draft (study) was one out of the 9 drawings for a portfolio titled ‘Gott mit uns’ published in 1920

George Grosz takes aim at the stupidity and brutality of the German military in his portfolio Gott mit Uns (God with us). In nine unremittingly caustic, clearly rendered illustrations, Grosz focuses on the corrupt nature of the pompous, overfed, and self-satisfied officers and officials who had dragged Germany into the cataclysm of World War I and who still governed the Weimar Republic. Grosz depicts the violent suppression of the working class by the ruling class. In Die Kommunisten fallen—und die Devisen steigen (Blood is the Best Sauce), uniformed soldiers beat unarmed protestors as an officer and a profiteer enjoy a decadent meal. Elsewhere, a dead body washing ashore does not disturb a soldier’s cigarette break. Grosz sharpens his visual attacks with captions printed in three languages—English, French, and German. These statements are not always direct translations, but sometimes different phrases that together heighten Grosz’s satirical attacks. “Gott mit Uns” (God with us), taken from the inscription on German soldiers’ belt buckles, originally meant to invoke God’s support, becomes in the English caption “God for Us,” a nationalist cry to smite the enemy.

Grosz’s political stance (as a communist) and intentions (working-class revolution) were obvious. Kurt Tucholsky, one of Weimar Germany’s leading satirists, said of the portfolio, “If drawings could kill, the Prussian military would certainly be dead.” Grosz, along with his publisher, Wieland Herzfelde, was tried for defamation of the military; found guilty, they were fined and forced to surrender all copies of the portfolio to the army.

Work was acquired in 1987 at the Sheldon Ross Gallery, Birmingham, Michigan

Comes with original documentation (certificate) of the Sheldon Ross Gallery

Overall excellent condition

Information on George Grosz

George Grosz (July 26, 1893 – July 6, 1959) was a German artist known especially for his savagely caricature drawings of Berlin life in the 1920s.
He was a prominent member of the Berlin Dada and New Objectivity group during the Weimar Republic before he emigrated to the United States in 1933.
George Grosz was born Georg Ehrenfried Groß in Berlin, Germany, the son of a pub owner.

His parents were devoutly Lutheran. Grosz grew up in the Pomeranian town of Stolp.

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.

Although Grosz made his first oil paintings in 1912 while still a student, his earliest oils that can be identified today date from 1916.

By 1914, Grosz worked in a style influenced by Expressionism and Futurism, as well as by popular illustration, graffiti, 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.

In his drawings, usually in pen and ink which he sometimes developed further with watercolor, Grosz did much to create the image most have 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.

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.