Interrogation

George Grosz (1893 - 1959)

Ben Uri Gallery, The London Jewish Museum of Art

1938

Grosz is renowned for challenging the politically corrupt regime and the decadence in Germany in the 1920's and early thirties through his sardonic and cutting satirical compositions. This watercolour was painted after the artist's emigration to the USA. Grosz has produced a sort of hybrid combining his raw, cutting and realistic composition but devoid of his characteristic over-exaggeration and pathos. This work shows the brutality exactly as he understood it and the huge 'fist of authority' coming through the window is perhaps the most symbolic feature of the composition. The work will be a pivotal example in the museum's exhibition surveying German, Russian and British war artists and those like Grosz, Levy, Chagall who commented from the side.

• Medium: coloured inks & watercolour on paper
• Dimensions: 43.8 x 55.9cm
• Art Fund Grant: £20000 ( Total: £35,127)
• ArtFunded in: 2010
• Vendor: Montgomery Gallery

Provenance

Serge Sabarsky Gallery, New York; Private collection, Florida; Sotheby's, New York, 1989; ACA Galleries, New York, Collection of Peter Bedford, California; Montgomery Gallery, San Francisco.

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