Plauderei

In 1923 Grosz signed a contract with Alfred Flechtheim (fig. 1), one of Germany's most successful dealers in contemporary art. He had made his name with French artists such as Picasso, Braque and Léger, only rarely representing a German artist, so his interest in Grosz was a measure of the artist's increasing renown. To be represented by such an influential dealer also provided hope for Grosz to make a good living from his painting - Flechtheim had no time for the unsuccessful. The present work is representative of the shift occuring in Grosz's oeuvre during the mid-1920s, moving away from corrosive satire towards a less acid social observation. Nonetheless, the scene in Plauderei is not without poignancy. The seated woman, seemingly reaching for the back of her neck to clasp her tangled pearls, seems ill at ease with the suave, almost predator-like man opposite her. Executed in the soft, fluid style characteristic of the watercolours of this period, it is an unusally fine example of the artist at the height of his creative powers.