George Grosz: Art and Politics in the Weimar Republic

Abstract

George Grosz's famous drawings of the plutocrats, militarists, industrialists, and war profiteers of the Weimar Republic speak as powerfully now as when they were first created, and Beth Lewis's penetrating account of the artist's career addresses the source of the passion behind the pictures: Grosz was a profoundly political man who raged against oppression and stupidity. He satirized the Germany of his time so bitterly and so perceptively that his pictures seem to confront today's evils as well. From Grosz's influential part in the anarchic Berlin dada movement through his years of association with the Communists and his later disillusionment with the party, Lewis provides a vivid picture of the life of a superb artist in political context. Illustrated with over eighty of Grosz's drawings, this work is also a stimulating analysis of the question of dissent in a democratic society. An extensive and completely updated bibliography is provided. Here is a complex character lovingly, intelligently, and elegantly presented by an author fully familiar with the world Grosz moved in.--Istvan Deak, Journal of Modern History