Little Man

George GroszWW-1917-125466

1917·Pen and brush and black ink on cream wove tracing paper·25 × 20.1 cm (9 7/8 × 7 15/16 in.)

<p>This evocative drawing exemplifies George Grosz’s interest in creating symbolic self-portraits. Here we see Grosz himself seated at a table, with a cityscape behind him and a “little man” before him. During World War I, he often inserted such figures into paintings, drawings, and prints as a means of self-parody and social commentary. In fact, one scholar has suggested that here the “little man” represents the artist in mannequin form and that therefore the work is a double self-portrait.</p>

Catalogue

Year: 1917
Medium: Pen and brush and black ink on cream wove tracing paper
Dimensions: 25 × 20.1 cm (9 7/8 × 7 15/16 in.)
Collection: Art Institute of Chicago
Artist: George Grosz

Artist

George Grosz

Painting

George Grosz was a German artist known especially for his caricatural drawings and paintings of Berlin life in the 1920s. He was a prominent member of the Berlin Dada and New Objectivity groups during the Weimar Republic. He emigrated to the United States in 1933, and became a naturalized citizen in 1938. Abandoning the style and subject matter of his earlier work, he exhibited regularly and taught for many years at the Art Students League of New York. In 1959 he returned to Berlin, where he died shortly afterwards.

Berlin, Germany

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