Lot Essay
In 1918 Grosz took part with Raoul Hausmann and Richard Huelsenbeck in the first Dada recital at the Berlin Seccession. In the following year he joined John Heartfield and Wielend Herzfelde in founding the political and satirical magazine Die Pleite ('Gone Bust'), and with Carl Einstein, Die blutige Ernst ('Deadly Earnest'), for which he provided poems and numerous illustrations.
I am trying again to give an absolutely realistic picture of the world. I strive to be comprehensible to every person - without the depth demanded today. In the attempt to develop a clear and simple style one instinctively approaches Carrà . . . Man is represented no longer individually with delicately probing psychology, but as a collectivist, almost mechanical concept. The fate of the individual is no longer important . . . I thrust back colour. The line is drawn in an undifferentiated photographic manner, one constructs in order to achieve plasticity. Once again stability, structure and utilitarianism . . . Control over line is reintroduced. It is no longer a matter of conjuring up on the canvas expressionistic brightly coloured wallpapers for the soul. The objectivity and clarity of engineering drawing is a more effective example than the uncontrolled drivel of Kabbalah and metaphysics and the ecstasy of saints. (G. Grosz, from "Zu meinen neuen Bildern", in U. M. Schneede, George Grosz: Life and Work, New York, 1979, p. 66)
I am trying again to give an absolutely realistic picture of the world. I strive to be comprehensible to every person - without the depth demanded today. In the attempt to develop a clear and simple style one instinctively approaches Carrà . . . Man is represented no longer individually with delicately probing psychology, but as a collectivist, almost mechanical concept. The fate of the individual is no longer important . . . I thrust back colour. The line is drawn in an undifferentiated photographic manner, one constructs in order to achieve plasticity. Once again stability, structure and utilitarianism . . . Control over line is reintroduced. It is no longer a matter of conjuring up on the canvas expressionistic brightly coloured wallpapers for the soul. The objectivity and clarity of engineering drawing is a more effective example than the uncontrolled drivel of Kabbalah and metaphysics and the ecstasy of saints. (G. Grosz, from "Zu meinen neuen Bildern", in U. M. Schneede, George Grosz: Life and Work, New York, 1979, p. 66)