Description

George Grosz signed original INK drawing on parchment paper ‘zwei Akten’ – 1937

George Grosz (1893-1959) | Original ink drawing (fase2) 1937 “zwei Akten” (two nudes)

✓ Hand Signed – dated on the back
✓ Black ink on parchment paper
✓ Sheet measures 29,5 x 21 cm (11.8″ x 8.4″)

Work was acquired in 1979 at the Sheldon Ross Gallery, Birmingham, Michigan. Comes with original documentation (certificate) of the Sheldon Ross Gallery, has been in my possession since then.

✓ Overall very fine condition.

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.