GEORGE GROSZ

(1893-1959)

Clown und Partner

Footnotes

The authenticity of this work has been confirmed by Dr. Ralph Jentsch. This work will be included in the forthcoming volume of the George Grosz catalogue raisonné of works on paper, currently being prepared.

Provenance
Galleria Schwarz, Milan, no. C 2601 (by 1958).
Anon. sale, Parke-Bernet, New York, 19 November 1969, lot 15a.
Jay C. Leff Collection, New York.
Anon. sale, Sotheby's, New York, 22 October 1975, lot 219.
Anon. sale, Sotheby's, London, 4 December 1985, lot 37.
Anon. sale, Sotheby's, Munich, 31 May 1990, lot 109.
Private collection, UK (acquired at the above sale).

Exhibited
Dusseldorf, Kunsthalle Dusseldorf, Dada: Dokumente einer Bewegung, 5 September - 19 October 1958, no. 21.
Hanover, Kestner-Gesellschaft, Dada, Photographie und Photocollage, 6 June - 5 August 1979, no. 52.
Caracas, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Caracas, El Espiritu Dada 1915/1925, 14 November 1980 - 15 January 1981.

Realised circa 1922 in Berlin, Clown und Partner is a rare Dadaist collage by George Grosz. In typical Dadaist fashion Grosz here sets up a visual dialectic contrasting the somewhat tragic figure of the clown in outsized clothes with a photomontage element depicting a portly member of the bourgeoise in evening dress smoking a cigar. By contrasting these two opposing subjects yet simultaneously making visual comparisons between the two, most notably with the wild hair and formal dress, Grosz serves to evoke the Dada spirit of illogical coherence and thus underscore the satirical tone of the composition: Germany's elitist class has become a laughing stock.

In 1919 George Grosz and John Heartfield joined the newly formed Communist party and, in accordance with Dadaism, set about expressing anti-bourgeois protest and a solidarity with the proletariat. Writing in 1925, George Grosz and Wieland Herzfelde set out their aims for the function of contemporary art: 'the artist cannot withdraw himself from the laws of social development – today the class struggle. A detached stance, above or on the side lines, still means taking sides. Such indifference and otherworldliness supports automatically the class in power – in Germany its bourgeoisie... The artist today, can only choose between technical construction and propaganda in the class struggle. In either case he will have to give up on pure art' (Grosz and Herzfelde quoted in H. Hess, George Grosz, London, 1985, p. 85). Grosz first turned to collage in 1919 when, together with John Heartfield, he produced a series of drawings and photomontages to deconstruct traditional bourgeois art and to imbue it with fresh impact and democratic value.

Grosz was enchanted with the circus and its cast of performers from an early age. Writing in his autobiography he described his formative attraction to the bohemian, anti-establishment characters of the travelling circuses that frequented his childhood town of Stolp, 'Ah what boy has not been fascinated by circus life and activity? What I wouldn't have given to have gone out into the world with the rope dancers and jugglers and lived in a white wagon so richly decorated and gilded. Naturally not as the boy I was, but as a world-famous jumper or trapeze artist' (Grosz quoted in A Little Yes and a Big No, New York, 1946). After moving to Berlin in 1912, Grosz was able to fully immerse himself in circus, cabarets, and theatres of the metropolis, and it was in these places that Grosz could observe the interactions between the bourgeoisie and those at the fringes of society. His work from this key Berlin period is filled with acerbic observations and social commentary cementing his reputation as one of Germany's most celebrated satirists.

The creative anarchy of Dada was to provide the fertile ground upon which André Breton would grow the Surrealist movement. Though Grosz himself did not join the Surrealists, the emphasis on nonsense and irrationality that had characterised Dada formed the foundations of Surrealism, with many artists who had been proponents of the earlier movement joining Surrealist ranks after the dissolution of Dada in the mid-1920s.