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拍品專文
Sold with a photo certificate from Ralph Jentsch, dated New York/Capri 15. August 2002.
Quer durch Berlin N. (Cross-section through North Berlin) is a magnificent watercolour that presents a cross-section of Berlin society in the immediate aftermath of the First World War and during the fledgling years of the Weimar Republic. Grosz, who, at this time was venting his "absolute hatred of man" through his art, catalogues the complete redundancy of German culture that he witnessed during this traumatic, unstable, and at times, revolutionary period in Berlin's history. Taking as his subject the predominantly working class Northern districts of the city, Prenzlauer and Wedding (often known as Red Wedding because of the left-wing leanings of many of its proletarian citizens) Grosz articulates the grim reality of this inhospitable district full of purpose-built housing and profiteering philistines.
As much as it betrays Grosz's disgust at the corruption of the world around him Quer durch Berlin N also betrays Grosz's love of his craft. Exhibiting the artist's mastery of his "knife-hard" pen and ink style of drawing and his command of vibrant and fully saturated watercolours, this work is one of Grosz's most complete and finely realised of all his watercolour compositions. Grosz's own satisfaction with the work is indicated by the fact that he hung it in pride of place next to his cane and his boxing gloves in his studio on Nassauische Strasse.
Ralph Jentsch who has authenticated this work and is preparing the catalogue raisonné of Grosz's works on paper has kindly written the following description of this work.
On February 5 in 1920, Grosz sent five watercolours to his Munich dealer Hans Goltz. Three of them were priced at 1,000 Marks, and two, Schönheit, Dich will ich preisen and Quer durch Berlin N., at 1,500 Marks. All five watercolours were included in an exhibition at the Galerie Neue Kunst Hans Goltz in April and May of 1920. In total, Goltz showed ten paintings by Grosz, eleven watercolours, 40 drawings and a selection of prints and etchings. A number of these were illustrated in the magazine Der Ararat which served as an exhibition catalogue. The exhibition was quite a success, and among other works Quer durch Berlin N. was sold and accounted for by Goltz on 7 December 1920.
In the northern part of Berlin with the boroughs Wedding and Prenzlauer Berg were the earliest concentration of industrial plants with large tenement houses nearby built to house the masses of workers. The present work shows, like many of Grosz's works at the time, the darker side of the city, the poor inside of houses and the rough reality of the streets, often intermingling with one another. A pimp sits at a bar table, his face full of open pustules and blisters. He is however well dressed like the other characters in the picture: the fat racketeer with his slippery face, a white collar criminal, smoking an expensive cigar, or the ugly bourgeois man, an industrial factory owner or perhaps a greedy landlord with all the attributes of this social standard, wearing a top hat, a white scarf and a coat with fur collar. A prostitute is roaming the streets, and a view behind curtains of one of the many windows of the grey and dirty tenement houses shows us a couple fighting in their kitchen. The scene at centre right underlines the gloomy mood and the lack of hope: a person who has committed suicide hangs from a roof beam; nearby is the flag of the deposed Kaiser, jutting from a red brick church at an angle almost parallel to that of the beam from which the person who has committed suicide hangs.
Grosz completed this work with the careful use of watercolour and pen and ink, the colours varying in intensity from light wash to a richness of dark shades in all colours, giving the architectural structure of the composition space and depth. Leaving the windows of the big tenement house in the near distance as white patches as well as the collar of the racketeer heightens the brilliance of this important work created at a time when the Weimar Republic was born.
The blue artist's label on the reverse of this work is a detail of Grosz's drawing Café of 1918, published in 'Ecce Homo', 1922 as no. 41.
Quer durch Berlin N. (Cross-section through North Berlin) is a magnificent watercolour that presents a cross-section of Berlin society in the immediate aftermath of the First World War and during the fledgling years of the Weimar Republic. Grosz, who, at this time was venting his "absolute hatred of man" through his art, catalogues the complete redundancy of German culture that he witnessed during this traumatic, unstable, and at times, revolutionary period in Berlin's history. Taking as his subject the predominantly working class Northern districts of the city, Prenzlauer and Wedding (often known as Red Wedding because of the left-wing leanings of many of its proletarian citizens) Grosz articulates the grim reality of this inhospitable district full of purpose-built housing and profiteering philistines.
As much as it betrays Grosz's disgust at the corruption of the world around him Quer durch Berlin N also betrays Grosz's love of his craft. Exhibiting the artist's mastery of his "knife-hard" pen and ink style of drawing and his command of vibrant and fully saturated watercolours, this work is one of Grosz's most complete and finely realised of all his watercolour compositions. Grosz's own satisfaction with the work is indicated by the fact that he hung it in pride of place next to his cane and his boxing gloves in his studio on Nassauische Strasse.
Ralph Jentsch who has authenticated this work and is preparing the catalogue raisonné of Grosz's works on paper has kindly written the following description of this work.
On February 5 in 1920, Grosz sent five watercolours to his Munich dealer Hans Goltz. Three of them were priced at 1,000 Marks, and two, Schönheit, Dich will ich preisen and Quer durch Berlin N., at 1,500 Marks. All five watercolours were included in an exhibition at the Galerie Neue Kunst Hans Goltz in April and May of 1920. In total, Goltz showed ten paintings by Grosz, eleven watercolours, 40 drawings and a selection of prints and etchings. A number of these were illustrated in the magazine Der Ararat which served as an exhibition catalogue. The exhibition was quite a success, and among other works Quer durch Berlin N. was sold and accounted for by Goltz on 7 December 1920.
In the northern part of Berlin with the boroughs Wedding and Prenzlauer Berg were the earliest concentration of industrial plants with large tenement houses nearby built to house the masses of workers. The present work shows, like many of Grosz's works at the time, the darker side of the city, the poor inside of houses and the rough reality of the streets, often intermingling with one another. A pimp sits at a bar table, his face full of open pustules and blisters. He is however well dressed like the other characters in the picture: the fat racketeer with his slippery face, a white collar criminal, smoking an expensive cigar, or the ugly bourgeois man, an industrial factory owner or perhaps a greedy landlord with all the attributes of this social standard, wearing a top hat, a white scarf and a coat with fur collar. A prostitute is roaming the streets, and a view behind curtains of one of the many windows of the grey and dirty tenement houses shows us a couple fighting in their kitchen. The scene at centre right underlines the gloomy mood and the lack of hope: a person who has committed suicide hangs from a roof beam; nearby is the flag of the deposed Kaiser, jutting from a red brick church at an angle almost parallel to that of the beam from which the person who has committed suicide hangs.
Grosz completed this work with the careful use of watercolour and pen and ink, the colours varying in intensity from light wash to a richness of dark shades in all colours, giving the architectural structure of the composition space and depth. Leaving the windows of the big tenement house in the near distance as white patches as well as the collar of the racketeer heightens the brilliance of this important work created at a time when the Weimar Republic was born.
The blue artist's label on the reverse of this work is a detail of Grosz's drawing Café of 1918, published in 'Ecce Homo', 1922 as no. 41.