IMAGES OF THE UNDERBELLY

Dadaist artist George Grosz’s satirical sketches, paintings, and prints are iconic images of Weimar Germany, along with Bauhaus architecture, the horror film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Christopher Isherwood’s Berlin Stories, and, according to historian Peter Gay, Marlene Dietrich’s legs. Grosz depicted life in Weimar Berlin as corrupt, decadent, and often obscene, portraying prostitutes, murderers, army officers, and bureaucrats with equal contempt.

While Grosz is best known for his work from the 1920s and 1930s, it was World War I that shaped his style and his social commentary.

Born in Berlin in 1893, Grosz grew up in Stolp, a small town in Eastern Pomerania near the Baltic Sea. His childhood was a balancing act between imperial Germany’s militarized education system and the personal freedom enjoyed by a boy whose widowed mother worked too hard to have time to supervise his activities. His earliest drawings were inspired by scenes from pulp fiction: robbers, murders, shipwrecks, and a fantasy vision of the American West