Last Day

George GroszWW-1934-018125

1934·Watercolor, with touches of gouache, over graphite, selectively gum(?) varnished, on ivory wove paper·70 × 52.5 cm (27 9/16 × 20 11/16 in.)

<p>Grosz left Germany only eighteen days before Hitler seized power in January 1933. Because of his relentless political satire and criticism of the state, he would undoubtedly have been the target of persecution and execution by the new Nazi regime. Between 1933, when he arrived in New York, and 1936, he worked on a series of watercolors representing his first impressions of the metropolis. The Last Day does seem to be based on the Manhattan skyline, but Grosz's treatnent of it is more a foreshadowing of his apocalyptic paintings of the late 1930s. Grosz mounted an exhibition of his watercolors at Alfred Stieglitz's An American Place gallery in 1934-35.</p>

Catalogue

Year: 1934
Medium: Watercolor, with touches of gouache, over graphite, selectively gum(?) varnished, on ivory wove paper
Dimensions: 70 × 52.5 cm (27 9/16 × 20 11/16 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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