GEORGE GROSZ (1893-1959)


Caféhausszeneinscribed 'No 126 Cassirer' (lower left); stamped with the artist's estate stamp and inscribed '3 70 3' (verso)reed pen and India ink on paper63.1 x 41.3cm (24 13/16 x 17 1/16in).Executed in 1923
|The authenticity of this work has kindly been confirmed by Herr Ralph Jentsch. This work will be included in the forthcoming George Grosz catalogue raisonné of the works on paper, currently being prepared. ProvenanceThe artist's estate.Anon. sale, Dorotheum, Vienna, 28 November 2006, lot 31.ExhibitedBerlin, Galerie Bruno Cassirer, 1929, no. 126.In the beginning of the year 1912, Grosz moved from Dresden to Berlin. It was then in 1915 that he had reached in his drawings the 'knife-hard style' that he needed to draw what he saw and what he became famous for. With a tremendous joie de vivre, Grosz hurled himself into the big-city life, capturing busy streets scenes with all sort of types, and also bar, coffeehouse and restaurant scenes, the subject of people varying from grotesque looking figures to adventurous, ugly and sinister ones. Dance bars and coffee houses with music bands playing away belonged to Grosz's preferred hunting grounds. Nothing escaped his obsessive observation and he mercilessly captured everything he saw and witnessed his drawings, as he would do on other occasions: observing petty bourgeoisie, the outbreak of political revolt or the struggle for survival of the poor ones. In this very drawing, the artist captured people sitting at small round coffee tables, drinking and smoking gaily away. Standing nearby there are two elderly neatly dressed up men talking to each other, while a waiter busily carries a tray with a bottle and glasses to another table. Before the war, Grosz had planned to publish a large, three-volume work with the title Die Hässlichkeit der Deutschen (The Ugliness of the Germans), as expression of his pronounced negative image of man. In this very drawing, Grosz used mainly the fine pen and ink and only few lines of the reed pen in order to execute this Berlin coffeehouse scene, unmasking with exact details the definitely not endearing characters of the people occupying this place. Text by Ralph Jentsch, Berlin & Rome.