George Grosz

#2

1948

De politieke en sociale satire van George Grosz (Berlijn, 1893-1959) staat centraal in de publicatie George Gros: "Schwarzer Champagner und blutiger Ernst". Collages, schetsboeken, tekeningen en grafiek tonen niet alleen zijn verbondenheid met de Nieuwe Zakelijkheid en Dada, maar ook zijn rake observeringen en scherpe maatschappijkritiek. In deze bijzondere publicatie wordt ingegaan op het bewogen leven van Grosz in Duitsland en Amerika, op de invloed van de massamedia en op Grosz' artistieke relaties met John Heartfield en Paul Citroen. Deze uitgave verschijnt bij de tentoonstelling over Grosz in Museum De Fundatie. Op deze eerste overzichtstentoonstelling van Grosz in Nederland - met bruiklenen van de Akademie der Künste in Berlijn - doet de kunstenaar verslag van de situatie in Duitsland na de Eerste Wereldoorlog. Exhibition: Museum de Fundatie-Paleis aan de Blijmarkt, Zwolle (5.9-5.12.2010).

#3

1997

No artist's work gives off the acrid whiff of Berlin during the 1920s as unmistakably as the paintings, drawings and prints of George Grosz (1893-1959). They teem with the characters who gave the capital of the Weimar Republic its by turns dangerously seductive and repulsive face: the prostitutes and pimps, the beggars and black marketers, the scheming politicians, vengeful military and judiciary, the dissatisfied workers and self-important bourgeoisie. In Grosz's work we can follow, through at first politically committed but then increasingly disillusioned eyes, the course of Germany from defeat in the First World War through economic and political crisis to the rise and triumph of Fascism. Given Grosz's stature and the still-growing interest in modern German art, it is extraordinary that the exhibition at the Royal Academy will be the first in Britain since 1962. It will include about 150 of his finest works on paper and will show a number of major works never previously seen. The catalogue will also provide information, unfamiliar to a non-German audience, about a fascinating and complex artist: several of Grosz's key theoretical essays and most of his revealing letters have never been translated into English.