Description

George Grosz original etching – detail from ‘Ecce Homo’ 1

George Grosz (1893-1959) ‘Ecce Homo’

This was an illustrated book with 100 offset lithographs 1922/1923

The original works were executed 1915-1923

The work on sale is an original etching – detail from ‘Promenade’

The original work depicts a group of 3 persons – copy joined but not part of this sale

Etching is hand-signed and hand-numbered on the obverse – 3/10

Specifications

✓ Sheet measures : 233 x 162 mm (9.32 x 6.48 inch)

✓ Image size : 170 x 100 mm (6.8 x 4 inch)

This George Grosz etching was bought during a Charity auction at Rockefeller Plaza Center New York in 1992, together with other works from Otto Dix and George Grosz.

Very very fine 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.