Grosz
George Grosz (b.1893, Berlin; d.1959, Berlin)
aka "Georg Ehrenfried GroSS" (s-zed)

Reference: Taschen "Dadaism" by Dietmar Elger (ed, by our dear friend
Uta Grosenick)  ISBN 3-8228-2946-3

"Like John Heartfield, he anglicised his name in 1916 -- deliberately
provoking those around him. ... He was one of the first artists who
immediately recognised the madness of the war.  ... By increasinly
eliminating the expressive gesture from his depictions, and making
his drawings more and more impersonal and un-emotional, he hoped
to arrive at an objectivsation of the artistic statement.

"The persons who appear in his works, therefore, never evince 
portrait-like features, but are only recognisable as representatives
of their social class. Grosz drew both the victims of the war and those
who gained from it. He realised that the line between these two groups
ran straight through the middle of the German people. On the streets
of Berlin those crippled in action, along with beggars and prostitutes
would encounter the well-fed middle-class who continued to pursue
their pleasures, and the industrialists whose profits the war had only
increased. Grosz understood his artistic work as a political struggle
designed to arouse the beholder. "  [Loc cit, P.48]
   
        "I drew and painted in a spirit of contrariness and tried
          to use my work to convince the world that it was ugly, 
          sick and hypocritical."

Of special interest is: "The guilty one remains unknown" (1919, Pen 
and Indian Ink drawing, collage on cardboard, 50.7cm x 35.5cm)



Chronology