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Een klein ja, een groot nee
'Dit is een poging tot een autobiografie en de lezer dient te weten dat ik datgene wat ik niet zeg ook niet wil zeggen. ja, ik houd van het halfdonker. En alstublieft, verwart u het halfdonker niet met iets vaags of verdoezelends. Want ook als het donker wordt, blijft de eeuwig menselijke vorm tastbaar en intact.' Aldus begon George Grosz in 1941 zijn autobiografie.
Grosz is zijn hele leven sympathisant met revolutie en socialisme gebleven, hoewel hij nimmer een benauwend communistisch partijstandpunt aanhing of enig sociaal of marxistisch dogmatisme huldigde. Direct na de eerste wereldoorlog komt de grote roem als hij collages maakt met John Heartfield, Wieland Herzfelde en Erwin Piscator. In 1921 valt ook zijn eerste proces wegens belediging van de Reichswehr. Vele processen en veroordelingen zullen nog volgen. In 1932, reist hij naar Amerika en is daar enorm actief in anti fascistische bewegingen en acties.
Dit boeiende, nu eens nostalgische dan weer nuchtere memoriaal van een der grootste schilders uit de geschiedenis mag in de autobiografische reeks Privé Domein niet ontbreken.
* Ik ken niemand die het moderne gezicht van de machthebbers zo tot in het laatste rode wijnadertje heeft getroffen als hij. Zijn geheim: hij lacht niet alleen, hij háát ook. Kurt Tucholsky
Grosz is zijn hele leven sympathisant met revolutie en socialisme gebleven, hoewel hij nimmer een benauwend communistisch partijstandpunt aanhing of enig sociaal of marxistisch dogmatisme huldigde. Direct na de eerste wereldoorlog komt de grote roem als hij collages maakt met John Heartfield, Wieland Herzfelde en Erwin Piscator. In 1921 valt ook zijn eerste proces wegens belediging van de Reichswehr. Vele processen en veroordelingen zullen nog volgen. In 1932, reist hij naar Amerika en is daar enorm actief in anti fascistische bewegingen en acties.
Dit boeiende, nu eens nostalgische dan weer nuchtere memoriaal van een der grootste schilders uit de geschiedenis mag in de autobiografische reeks Privé Domein niet ontbreken.
* Ik ken niemand die het moderne gezicht van de machthebbers zo tot in het laatste rode wijnadertje heeft getroffen als hij. Zijn geheim: hij lacht niet alleen, hij háát ook. Kurt Tucholsky
372 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1946
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About the author
George Grosz
109 books12 followersGeorge Grosz (German: [ɡʁoːs]; born Georg Ehrenfried Groß) was a German artist known especially for his caricatural drawings and paintings of Berlin life in the 1920s. He was a prominent member of the Berlin Dada and New Objectivity groups during the Weimar Republic. He immigrated to the United States in 1933, and became a naturalized citizen in 1938. Abandoning the style and subject matter of his earlier work, he exhibited regularly and taught for many years at the Art Students League of New York. In 1959 he returned to Berlin, where he died shortly afterwards.
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
November 10, 2017
This is a beautifully written autobiography. I felt that I was reading the words of a man, whom I would have enjoyed meeting.
Grosz wrote in a style which was as approachable as his perceptive drawings and paintings, which do much to portray the awkwardness of the times that he lived through in Germany before and during the rise of the Nazis.
Grosz visited the USSR shortly after the Russian Revolution. His account of this visit to a 'new world' is far more realistic than many written by other western intellectual visitors, mostly starry-eyed, to the country in those days.
This book describes Grosz's difficulty in becoming an artist, and then the exciting world in which he mixed in the years before Adolf Hitler came to power.
Apart from much name-dropping, some of which is essential to the story, this is well-worth reading, especially if you are innterested in the tumultuous years between WW1 and the start of the Third Reich.
Grosz wrote in a style which was as approachable as his perceptive drawings and paintings, which do much to portray the awkwardness of the times that he lived through in Germany before and during the rise of the Nazis.
Grosz visited the USSR shortly after the Russian Revolution. His account of this visit to a 'new world' is far more realistic than many written by other western intellectual visitors, mostly starry-eyed, to the country in those days.
This book describes Grosz's difficulty in becoming an artist, and then the exciting world in which he mixed in the years before Adolf Hitler came to power.
Apart from much name-dropping, some of which is essential to the story, this is well-worth reading, especially if you are innterested in the tumultuous years between WW1 and the start of the Third Reich.
August 11, 2024
Maybe my expectations were a bit wrong, but where the book started off with Grosz's youth, most of the big questions I had about his personal and professional life remained unanswered. You could argue that this shouldn't be the purpose of an autobiography, but the most of the chapters did not provide me with the same reading pleasure. Maybe the very chronological tone (first steps in art, growing up in a small village) of the start, then descending off into random anecdotes, parabels, list of acquaintances, changed the tone too much for me to really enjoy. Maybe this book is perfect for those that now Grosz too well, but it's not that good for those who want to get to know him better. My feeling is that the author, reaching a later stage in his life, decided to tell a story mostly to himself, while not committing entirely to this project. The leaps in his life-story are too big and the ending seemed like the author was just fed up with the book and wanted to finish it off. The book does contain some interesting accounts of the artists crazy life, like post-WW1 Berlin or his visit to 1920-era Sovjet Union, that make up for a brutal, illusion-shattering analysis. Sometimes his satirical skills come really well into text, when he sarcastically analyses the general behaviour and tendencies of his surroundings. We encounter Grosz, but for me not as the best of authors.
December 20, 2019
Excelentes memorias de un pintor, sus encuentroa con otros artistas como Brecht o Mann, sus impresiones sobre la vida, su sarcasmo contra la desilusión y cómo quedó emparedado entre las paredes del autoritarismo y del mercado; su puntual huída del sartén del nazismo para caer en las brazas del capitalismo.
"Somos todos tan ilustrados que hemos dejado la fantasía en manos de los geopolíticos y los tecnócratas."
"Somos todos tan ilustrados que hemos dejado la fantasía en manos de los geopolíticos y los tecnócratas."
April 18, 2020
No sé si os ocurre a vosotros, probablemente me equivoco, pero me da la impresión de que casi siempre es mucho más divertido, excitante e incluso enriquecedor leer memorias y autobiografías de pintores -u otros artistas- que de escritores. Quizá no tanto porque los pintores crean tener menos ego que los escritores -que en ese pecado suelen ir a la par o incluso los superan-, como porque al estar los primeros, de ordinario, menos acostumbrados a la palabra escrita que los segundos, esta, digamos, falta de oficio en el para ellos nuevo vehículo de expresión, los saca un poco de foco, así que van por faena: van a hablar de lo suyo, que es hablar de sí mismos, mientras que los escritores pocas palabras sueltan que no empiecen y acaben en ellos, tras dar la vuelta completa a su micromundo. Antes de poder asistir a nada verdaderamente interesante tienes primero que pagar el peaje de una órbita completa a su yoísmo.
A estas memorias de Grosz le sobran un montón de páginas, porque Grosz no tiene el instinto escritor de la elipsis, no tiene filtro, pero a cambio es lo justo sincero, pagado de sí mismo pero a la vez honesto como para no convertir el viaje en una pesadilla de egolatía y auntoindulgencia.
Perfecto testimonio de la Alemania herida y negra, surgida de la vergüenza de Versailles, termina cuando Grosz emigra a América, con la llegada de Hitler al poder en Alemania.
Grosz, judío, artista incómodo y satírico, "degenerado" para los nazis, salvó el culo por los pelos y vivió en América hasta 1959. El libro se publicó en 1946. Su autor tiene el buen gusto de ahorrarnos cualquier página sobre su vida más allá del inicio de la Segunda Guerra Mundial, sabieno los años de guadaña que se ciernen sobre el mundo, Europa, y sobre todo Alemania. Supongo que en su fuero interno sabe que describir ni que fuese un agradable paseo o un frugal desayuno americanos, sería echar sal sobre las fosas del Holocausto.
A estas memorias de Grosz le sobran un montón de páginas, porque Grosz no tiene el instinto escritor de la elipsis, no tiene filtro, pero a cambio es lo justo sincero, pagado de sí mismo pero a la vez honesto como para no convertir el viaje en una pesadilla de egolatía y auntoindulgencia.
Perfecto testimonio de la Alemania herida y negra, surgida de la vergüenza de Versailles, termina cuando Grosz emigra a América, con la llegada de Hitler al poder en Alemania.
Grosz, judío, artista incómodo y satírico, "degenerado" para los nazis, salvó el culo por los pelos y vivió en América hasta 1959. El libro se publicó en 1946. Su autor tiene el buen gusto de ahorrarnos cualquier página sobre su vida más allá del inicio de la Segunda Guerra Mundial, sabieno los años de guadaña que se ciernen sobre el mundo, Europa, y sobre todo Alemania. Supongo que en su fuero interno sabe que describir ni que fuese un agradable paseo o un frugal desayuno americanos, sería echar sal sobre las fosas del Holocausto.
April 22, 2018
This book is an autobiography by German painter and illustrator George Grosz. Grosz was an artist normally associated with the German Expressionist movement in the arts. Expressionism grew from the ashes of the First World War when pretty pictures and art for art's sake became an ineffectual way to convey the horror that Europe had seen and the general spirit of the times. Expressionism was defined more by an attitude than by a particular style of painting -like Impressionism or Cubism for example- and it was more closely related to literature than the visual arts. Several artists groups sprung around this new way of painting. In Germany alone we can name a few : "Der Blaue Reiter" "Die Brücke" and "Neue Sachlihkeit" among others. Broadly speaking, these groups focused on the portrayal of the rough edges of humanity. They did indeed favor human subjects and city life over landscapes. Expressionism conveyed the troubled zeitgeist with jagged lines, a graphic style, deformed anatomies, rough hewn woodblock printing, arbitrary color, etc... but its followers varied greatly in style. From Nolde, to Otto Dix, Kirhner or Kathe Kolwitz the variety of approach is simply to broad to be able to reduce it to a formula.
George Grosz was educated at the Dresden Art Academy within the hallowed traditions of the academic pursuit of excellence. But academia had become stiffled and dry . The mere mention of Van Gogh could send a master into convulsions. With he world in the midst of upheaval and strong winds of art innovation coming from France, the dismantling of the true and tried had begun. It's worth mentioning the biggest turmoil would come from the political hurricanes that engulfed the Weimar Republic, a period fascinating in that so much of it resembles our own present time. The polarization between leftists utopias and right-wind authoritarianism, the search for demagogues that would lead the masses by telling them what they wanted to hear, the nativist superstitions pitted against internationalist allegiances, the ineffectual passivity of governments embedded with the establishment, etc..
Grosz and many fellow students left for Berlin the minute they were done squeezing meaningful stimulus out of Academia. Aspiring artists followed a standard path of job searches and commission hunting. His first job doing illustrations for magazines lets him make a modest income and attain even a certain degree of independence and fame. The war breaks and he gets injured but a first strike of luck rescues him from further fighting. His vision darkens a great deal. His paintings are a swarm of distorted figures and obvious symbolism. Cardinals, generals and pig-like tycoons mingle with soldiers and prostitutes in a frantic dance. From this time are pieces like "Ecce Homo" and "Pillars of Society". For all purposes he is part of the intelligentsia, the argumentative, ever-punctilious elite that spends its time in cafes discussing the importance of this or that political minutia while the big majority of the country is just worrying about their bread and ever escalating inflation. Kind of like today. One of the many interesting aspects of this book is that Grosz often digresses and gives ample time to commiserate and describe many of the acquaintances -often tragic figures- who he often admires for a while until their idealism is trampled by the dire reality. Grosz himself soon subscribes loosely to left leaning ideologies, animated by a sense of justice. But he is no dummy or starry eyed idealist. He knows that he needs to "butter up" the people that will actually buy his art. He is not dogmatic or shrill. On the contrary, there is a very Germanic candid acceptance without the bitterness.
A strange boat trip to the Soviet Union in the early 1920's will shove away any illusions about a Moscow inspired communist utopia. Like many, he is soon disappointed by the shape that politics takes in all directions. By the time Hitler rears his head , he has already followed his gut- actually, he has an odd dream that explicitly invites him to America- and leaves Germany with his family. He would read about the Reichstag's burning already safely ensconced in New York. This segment of the book about him becoming an immigrant is truly what had me glued to the book which had been ho-hum till then, just a who is who of German cultural elites. In a few words, George Grosz had to reinvent himself at the ripe age of 40, he might have been famous in Germany, but the country as he knew it was gone. In America, he starts with two simple rules , try to blend in and like everything ...even if you don't. Along with this comes loosening European snobbishness about "culture", a useless superiority that many of his compatriots cling on to. Adopt the American way of art with its bright and sugary colors but also meticulous and likeable. This is the Golden Age of American illustration after all: Norman Rockwell, Dana Gibson, Dean Cornwell and many others. George Grosz works hard at catching up and , despite his many struggles -and there were a few- he perseveres. It is astounding how many doors he knocked on, from magazines to Hollywood, keeping an art school afloat all along. In a way, Grosz had to shed a whole history and create a new one almost from scratch. The two chapters "New York in June" and "Becoming American" are pivotal. Clearly Grosz becomes a bit less chatty at this point and the writing fizzles after that. He never recovered the heights of his early career even though he learned to enjoy art even more as an American.
In conclusion, George Grosz was not a writer. Part of the joy of this book are the many ink illustrations dispersed through the text. But as with many artists writings, one can get great insights into the times, personalities, dilemmas, contradictions at struggles that hide behind a museum piece. Highly recommended for art history lovers but not so much for those looking for a thrill or great writing.
George Grosz was educated at the Dresden Art Academy within the hallowed traditions of the academic pursuit of excellence. But academia had become stiffled and dry . The mere mention of Van Gogh could send a master into convulsions. With he world in the midst of upheaval and strong winds of art innovation coming from France, the dismantling of the true and tried had begun. It's worth mentioning the biggest turmoil would come from the political hurricanes that engulfed the Weimar Republic, a period fascinating in that so much of it resembles our own present time. The polarization between leftists utopias and right-wind authoritarianism, the search for demagogues that would lead the masses by telling them what they wanted to hear, the nativist superstitions pitted against internationalist allegiances, the ineffectual passivity of governments embedded with the establishment, etc..
Grosz and many fellow students left for Berlin the minute they were done squeezing meaningful stimulus out of Academia. Aspiring artists followed a standard path of job searches and commission hunting. His first job doing illustrations for magazines lets him make a modest income and attain even a certain degree of independence and fame. The war breaks and he gets injured but a first strike of luck rescues him from further fighting. His vision darkens a great deal. His paintings are a swarm of distorted figures and obvious symbolism. Cardinals, generals and pig-like tycoons mingle with soldiers and prostitutes in a frantic dance. From this time are pieces like "Ecce Homo" and "Pillars of Society". For all purposes he is part of the intelligentsia, the argumentative, ever-punctilious elite that spends its time in cafes discussing the importance of this or that political minutia while the big majority of the country is just worrying about their bread and ever escalating inflation. Kind of like today. One of the many interesting aspects of this book is that Grosz often digresses and gives ample time to commiserate and describe many of the acquaintances -often tragic figures- who he often admires for a while until their idealism is trampled by the dire reality. Grosz himself soon subscribes loosely to left leaning ideologies, animated by a sense of justice. But he is no dummy or starry eyed idealist. He knows that he needs to "butter up" the people that will actually buy his art. He is not dogmatic or shrill. On the contrary, there is a very Germanic candid acceptance without the bitterness.
A strange boat trip to the Soviet Union in the early 1920's will shove away any illusions about a Moscow inspired communist utopia. Like many, he is soon disappointed by the shape that politics takes in all directions. By the time Hitler rears his head , he has already followed his gut- actually, he has an odd dream that explicitly invites him to America- and leaves Germany with his family. He would read about the Reichstag's burning already safely ensconced in New York. This segment of the book about him becoming an immigrant is truly what had me glued to the book which had been ho-hum till then, just a who is who of German cultural elites. In a few words, George Grosz had to reinvent himself at the ripe age of 40, he might have been famous in Germany, but the country as he knew it was gone. In America, he starts with two simple rules , try to blend in and like everything ...even if you don't. Along with this comes loosening European snobbishness about "culture", a useless superiority that many of his compatriots cling on to. Adopt the American way of art with its bright and sugary colors but also meticulous and likeable. This is the Golden Age of American illustration after all: Norman Rockwell, Dana Gibson, Dean Cornwell and many others. George Grosz works hard at catching up and , despite his many struggles -and there were a few- he perseveres. It is astounding how many doors he knocked on, from magazines to Hollywood, keeping an art school afloat all along. In a way, Grosz had to shed a whole history and create a new one almost from scratch. The two chapters "New York in June" and "Becoming American" are pivotal. Clearly Grosz becomes a bit less chatty at this point and the writing fizzles after that. He never recovered the heights of his early career even though he learned to enjoy art even more as an American.
In conclusion, George Grosz was not a writer. Part of the joy of this book are the many ink illustrations dispersed through the text. But as with many artists writings, one can get great insights into the times, personalities, dilemmas, contradictions at struggles that hide behind a museum piece. Highly recommended for art history lovers but not so much for those looking for a thrill or great writing.
July 5, 2018
Una decepción ha sido leer esta biografía de Grosz. Pensar que siempre y ,con mi padre, admiramos y admirábamos la cualidad de ser un gran representante de su época, la época de entre guerras de Alemania. Sus trabajos pictóricos no tienen nada que ver con sus pensamientos, empezando por el desprecio de las "masas" o pueblo y su amor por el dinero me producen vomitos!!! Al leer esta biografía me decepciono mucho leer que el motivo de este artista, en sus trabajos, era solo ganar dinero y no traer a la luz la situación de una época. por supuesto el artista tiene que recibir una buena recompensa por su trabajo pero el dinero puede ser solo el fin de su trabajo. Además en la biografia no habla mucho de su arte, el porque hizo lo que hizo, sino más bien habla de las personas a quién conoció o de cosas un poco superficiales.
Al final de cuentas no encuentro un libro muy logrado. Este libro parece mas bien den artista resentido no solo con su época sino que también con e el mundo artistico.
Al final de cuentas no encuentro un libro muy logrado. Este libro parece mas bien den artista resentido no solo con su época sino que también con e el mundo artistico.
October 9, 2016
This book gives a good window onto the life and philosophy of an artist who, by his own reckoning, had a bit of a misanthropic streak. The work starts with Grosz's childhood in Pomerania, giving the reader an idyllic view onto an era in which war in Germany was considered a relic of the past; all kids knew about war in this time came from playing with their paper and dye-cast metal toys. There's some good stuff in the early sections dealing with a youth spent in Biedermeier-style coziness, along with an Ur-Szene in which Grosz sees his friend's relative naked through her bedroom window and he develops his lifelong obsession with the female form.
Things move swiftly from there to art school, after which Grosz breezes over his military service within the space of a chapter or two. I can't say that I blame him for not dwelling on his memories of the trenches. He didn't spend as much time there as fellow artist-veterans such as Otto Dix, but from what little he does divulge in the work, his time in war was a nightmare, which helped shape his political beliefs and the direction his artwork took in the coming years.
From there, Grosz moves on to reminiscing about his postwar years in Germany, the heady days of the Weimar Republic where Berlin was stacked to the rafters with colorful characters like astral mediums, transvestite cabaret artists, and closeted homosexual Nazis. For anyone who wants to get a bit of a history lesson from the horse's mouth, there are some gems to be found in here.
I'd be remiss if I didn't mention how lavishly the book is packed with sketches, marginalia, drawings, charcoal works, and paintings by Grosz . There are also a handful of photos thrown in for good measure.
The book ends on something of an upbeat note, with Grosz emigrating to America and forsaking what he considered the dour, claustrophobic aesthetic of his early years and embracing a style of painting that was much more in keeping with his newfound lust for life in his adopted homeland. This late happiness is of course tempered by the word that Grosz gets from the handful of Germans he knew who were lucky enough to escape Hitler's reign of terror, who describe what happened to those who waited around for the Nazis to make good on their threats.
Personal reminiscences are interspersed with Grosz's ideas about art, which are some of the most unpretentious I've encountered in the theoretical realm. Put simply, Grosz's main influence was the rough-hewn work of tabloid and adventure stories he consumed as a child, pulpy Karl May tales and lurid crime works meant to entertain the masses. His main goal with his own art was to keep a roof over his head and some food in his belly, and he makes no bones about how, beneath the artifice he kept up in cafe society circles, he was himself a bit of a prole at heart. Having had more than my fill of postmodern theory/con artistry by the likes of Warhol et. al., I found Grosz's candor refreshing.
Recommended, for fans of art and history.
Things move swiftly from there to art school, after which Grosz breezes over his military service within the space of a chapter or two. I can't say that I blame him for not dwelling on his memories of the trenches. He didn't spend as much time there as fellow artist-veterans such as Otto Dix, but from what little he does divulge in the work, his time in war was a nightmare, which helped shape his political beliefs and the direction his artwork took in the coming years.
From there, Grosz moves on to reminiscing about his postwar years in Germany, the heady days of the Weimar Republic where Berlin was stacked to the rafters with colorful characters like astral mediums, transvestite cabaret artists, and closeted homosexual Nazis. For anyone who wants to get a bit of a history lesson from the horse's mouth, there are some gems to be found in here.
I'd be remiss if I didn't mention how lavishly the book is packed with sketches, marginalia, drawings, charcoal works, and paintings by Grosz . There are also a handful of photos thrown in for good measure.
The book ends on something of an upbeat note, with Grosz emigrating to America and forsaking what he considered the dour, claustrophobic aesthetic of his early years and embracing a style of painting that was much more in keeping with his newfound lust for life in his adopted homeland. This late happiness is of course tempered by the word that Grosz gets from the handful of Germans he knew who were lucky enough to escape Hitler's reign of terror, who describe what happened to those who waited around for the Nazis to make good on their threats.
Personal reminiscences are interspersed with Grosz's ideas about art, which are some of the most unpretentious I've encountered in the theoretical realm. Put simply, Grosz's main influence was the rough-hewn work of tabloid and adventure stories he consumed as a child, pulpy Karl May tales and lurid crime works meant to entertain the masses. His main goal with his own art was to keep a roof over his head and some food in his belly, and he makes no bones about how, beneath the artifice he kept up in cafe society circles, he was himself a bit of a prole at heart. Having had more than my fill of postmodern theory/con artistry by the likes of Warhol et. al., I found Grosz's candor refreshing.
Recommended, for fans of art and history.
November 4, 2016
George Grosz was the quintessential artist of Berlin in the 20s, skewering everyone and everything around him, from the plutocrats driving the country to ruin to the beggars scraping for survival on the street. But sadly, the fire that made him such a strong artist had been dampened by the time he wrote this book. His new life in America was defined by the compromises he had to make to pay the bills and provide for his family, and you can feel his sense of defeat. The chapters on the German revolution of 1918 and his involvement with Dada in the 20s leaves you wishing you could have heard him before his anger had metastasized into bitterness.
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March 6, 2014To find
Referenced in The Orientalist
Referenced in The Orientalist
September 22, 2025
Vzpomínková kniha malíře Georga Grosze, který se v období první světové války a Výmarské republiky pohyboval v levicových kruzích. V roce 1933 měl to štěstí dostat nabídku pracovat v USA, a tak si pravděpodobně zachránil život. Místy dost zmatené vyprávění, ale obohacující popisy poválečného Německa, vznik dadaismu a zajímavá epizoda návštěvy SSSR v roce 1922 včetně setkání s Leninem. Nakonec je Grosz překvapivě upřímný a až překvapivě kritický vůči svému vlastnímu stavu.
"Říkal mi lichotky a já jsem je s pokornou blažeností přijímal - byl to totiž tehdy velký muž a my umělci, ctižádostivý, takoví už prostě jsme, ihned změkneme, když se dostaneme do blízkosti moci; zda to byla moc rudá, nebo měla jinou barvu, to bylo, dokud na nás zářila jako vlídné slunce, naprosto lhostejné."
"Říkal mi lichotky a já jsem je s pokornou blažeností přijímal - byl to totiž tehdy velký muž a my umělci, ctižádostivý, takoví už prostě jsme, ihned změkneme, když se dostaneme do blízkosti moci; zda to byla moc rudá, nebo měla jinou barvu, to bylo, dokud na nás zářila jako vlídné slunce, naprosto lhostejné."
January 4, 2023
don’t like this guy tbh
January 8, 2009
I really enjoyed reading this autobiography alongside the biographical perspective of Schneede's George Grosz: Life and Work, which, along with a large number of reproductions of the artist's work, contained further historical timelines and additional pictorial history of his contemporaries and times in Germany.
Grosz tended to romanticized people and events. Though chronological, this autobiography is not a mere recitation of events A to B. The author focuses on specific moments, often losing sight of particulars and quotidian happenings. There is, instead, a rich quilt of events that shaped the person he was.
Grosz tended to romanticized people and events. Though chronological, this autobiography is not a mere recitation of events A to B. The author focuses on specific moments, often losing sight of particulars and quotidian happenings. There is, instead, a rich quilt of events that shaped the person he was.
May 21, 2012
Really enjoyed reading this, not just for the biographical info on Grosz, but also for insights into the Weimar Republic, the New York art scene of the period, and late-19th & early 20th century Germany. Much more than just art history here.
February 19, 2014
As the book went on, it seemed as though Grosz lost interest in writing. His style became less vivacious and more rambling - however this does reflect the narrative he tells.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews