George Grosz - Editions & Works on Paper New York Tuesday, April 16, 2024 | Phillips

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  • “I drew and painted in opposition and attempted in my work to show the world in all its ugliness, sickness and lies.” 
    —George Grosz
    "In his early studies and drawings of female nudes from the years 1912 to 1914, the artist was not only interested in sketching the female figures, accompanied sometimes by male figures too, in various poses, but he also executed highly erotic subjects like this very murder scene, expressing his liking for grotesque, combining reality, imagination and dreams. There were just a few limits imposed on the depiction of scenes of lust and murder, often done with a certain humor, where pleasure turns into aggression and eroticism is combined with brutality. In his art Grosz often went to the limits of what is possible in identifying with sex and violence, sparing the beholder no details of what is taking place."

    – Dr. Ralph Jentsch, Manager of George Grosz Estate and Author of Forthcoming Catalogue Raisonné

     

    George Grosz, Metropolis (Grossstadt), 1917, Museum of Modern Art, New York. Image: Museum of Modern Art, New York / Scala, Florence, Artwork: © 2024 Estate of George Grosz / Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

    Ein Verbrechen (A Crime), drawn before the artist’s military service in 1917 and subsequent nervous breakdown, is a notable, early interpretation of the descent into moral and physical chaos that Grosz would continue to depict as a great affliction to Berlin in the late 1910s and early 1920s, often described in crime novels: sex and death, it seemed, were lurking around every corner. Some of Grosz’s most iconic images – darkly crowded and often red-tinged canvases in which the streets of Germany teem with beggars, prostitutes, and profiteers – serve to criticize Weimar-era politics, aesthetics, and values, offering what Grosz saw as the decay of German society. While his emblematic street scenes approach this madness as seen in the public spaces, Ein Verbrechen (A Crime) importantly takes us to an interior room, representing how this early culture of violence and vices manifested in the intimate spaces outside of immediate public view.

    • Provenance

      The artist, Berlin, c. 1913-14
      George Grosz Estate, 1959
      Private Collection

    • Exhibited

      Peter Deitsch Fine Arts Inc., New York, George Grosz, 1893-1959: A Selection of Fifty Early Drawings from 1910 to 1920, February 5 - March 2, 1968

    • Literature

      Peter Deitsch Fine Arts Inc., George Grosz, 1893-1959: A Selection of Fifty Early Drawings from 1910 to 1920, 1968, no. 18 (illustrated)

    • Catalogue Essay

      Dr. Ralph Jentsch has confirmed the authenticity of this work and will be included in the forthcoming Catalogue Raisonné of works on paper by George Grosz.

126

Ein Verbrechen (A Crime)

c. 1913-14
Unique sepia reed pen, pen and ink drawing, on Erclass typewriter laid paper.
9 1/8 x 8 3/4 in. (23.2 x 22.2 cm)
Signed in pencil and titled in pen, with the George Grosz Estate stamp (faded) and annotated '2 112 6' in black ink on the reverse, accompanied by a Certificate of Authenticity issued by Dr. Ralph Jentsch (director of the estate).

Full Cataloguing

Estimate
$10,000 - 15,000 

Sold for $12,700

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Editions & Works on Paper

New York Auction 16 - 17 April