George Grosz: The Big No

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Contributors: Lutz Becker, Helen Luckett and Roger Malbert

Editors: Nadine Monem and Faye Robson

Designer: Richard Hollis

Casebound
144 pages
Fully illustrated
210 x 154 mm
978 1 85332 300 3

Inspired by the same society that gave rise to Christopher Isherwood’s ‘Berlin Stories’, the drawings in George Grosz: The Big NO present a caustic, comic view of Germany in the troubled years of the Weimar Republic. Ranging from primitive and graffiti-like drawings to complex Futuristic street scenes with teeming crowds of overlapping figures, this collection shows Grosz at the height of his satirical powers, through a selection of works from his largest portfolio – Ecce Homo. Pimps, black-marketeers, prostitutes, demobbed soldiers and the nouveau riche rub shoulders in drawings of razor-sharp acuity and technical precision.

Also included are the powerful, anti-militarist Hintergrund drawings, originally published in 1928 to accompany Erwin Piscator’s production of The Good Soldier Svejk, which resulted in criminal charges being brought against Grosz for ‘blasphemy and defamation of the German military’.

George Grosz: The Big NO will be a welcome addition to the very limited titles available on this fascinating and influential artist. With informative text by Lutz Becker and a striking, contemporary design by Richard Hollis, the title is an essential guide to one of the twentieth century’s most important satirists.