George Grosz: Art and Politics in the Weimar Republic

by Beth Irwin Lewis

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

Genres: Art, History, Germany

370 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1971

Reviews

[Tom · Rating 5 out of 5]

it's hard.

[Fernando Pestana da Costa · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is an artistic biography of George Grosz, essentially focused in the period of the WW I and the Weimar regime, and even more specific, between the end of the War, the extraordinarily violent revolutionary times that followed, and the mid 1920s, when some sort of normalization of the political life in Germany took place. Grosz, a committed communist in that period, produced a remarkable, trenchant, often violent body of work attacking the militarist and reactionary elements of the German society of his time in a way that become the paradigm of the engagé artist, and created timeless drawings that still convey much of its original strength almost a century later. The book itself is a very interesting study of the artist, richly illustrated with his drawings, and also with some black and white reproductions of a small number of his paintings.

[Bernie4444 · Rating 3 out of 5]

The pictures alone are worth it.

Not sure of the purpose of the book other than a chronicle of the time from 1917 through 1933. Even though the focus is on the Weimar Republic the articles include the infusion of Soviet culture and some U.S. technical influence.

To describe the whole book here, would take time and end up looking like a whole book for the review. So, I slowed down and concentrated on the cinema as I am fairly familiar with some of that time. The section on the cinema moved very fast and was more like name-dropping than it was describing its purpose or what we were looking at. So, the book is probably better purchased for its pictures than it is for what it has to say.

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

very good very stressful so much in this book feels too relevent