George Grosz
Strassenszene, Berlin. Verso: Biergartenszene
1918
Each pen and ink drawing (pen and reed pen) on wove paper with blindstamp "LILIE" 35.8 x 50.8 cm resp. 50.8 x 35.8 cm (drawing verso ca. 22.5 x 19.8 cm) Signed 'Grosz' in pencil recto lower right. - Tiny pin holes in the left corners of the sheet, the right corners minimally torn and professionally amended as well as the few small marginal tears. Overall slightly browned, more intensely towards the margins. In the center of lower margin with narrow trace of moisture.
Through the concentration of its motif and the orientation of its figures, this drawing summarily represents the divergent society of the metropolis and illustrates a seemingly aimless and disconnected bustle. We recognise two elegant gentlemen with large moustaches: well-heeled representatives of the commercial class with the attributes of hat and cane, cigar and businessman's portfolio, fashionable gloves and shoes with pointed toecaps. Next to them there is a coarse-looking fellow with a little pipe and wheelbarrow, and the profile of an old-guard officer rises above them. Specific passages of the drawing have been energetically accentuated with a reed pen. As Ralph Jentsch explains in his expert report, this industriousness literally finds its flip side on the sheet's verso, where the sketched idyll of academic beer-garden contentedness suddenly slips into vulgarity and its participants are pointedly exposed as philistines and malignant cretins.
Certificate
With a photo-certificate and expertise from Ralph Jentsch, Berlin/Rome, dated 26 September 2018; The work will be included in the catalogue raisonné of the works on paper by George Grosz.
Provenance
Artist's studio; German private collection, in familiy possession since