Page 46 - Studio International - March 1967

The unknown Grosz

Nostalgia in a late group of photomontages—and an obsession with death reminiscent
of late nineteenth-century Romantic fantasy

Joshua Kind

The least known aspect of Georg Grosz's creative evolu-
tion is his Dada phase— a brief, yet self-confident episode
during his early maturity in Berlin at the close of
World War I. Perhaps it is the artist's predominant
image as a sardonic and violent social critic which has not
fostered any real interest in the man and the work of this
time. Whatever the cause, this neglect may be coming to
an end. A careful search through this period of his life
may result from a broader dissemination of the works
recently displayed in Chicago by the B. C. Holland
Gallery as an exhibition entitled The Unknown Grosz. The
twenty-two small photomontages, released from the
artist's estate by his son Peter, were probably made as a
group by the artist in a short period during the 1950's.
The best-known of Grosz's Dada-like works is The
General Heartfield of 1920— due to its frequent exhibi-
tion as a part of the Museum of Modern Art's collection.
As in other works of the time, the theme is that of the
human-automaton, and both the mechanical heart and
the small landscape view are assembled photographs
superimposed upon the water-colour. While there are
certainly aspects of Dada fantasy and transformation
inherent in the use of these collage parts, the image for
the most part remains within the realm of 'this world'. In
a sense this is not surprising, since the German Dada
movement always retained its particularly political
orientation. Yet other works of this time can be found in
which the prevailing mood is more universal and fan-
tastic. (Reproductions of such works seem to be available
only in Willi Wolfradt's monograph on Grosz published
in Leipzig in 1921.)
As early as 1917-18 Grosz had already used newspaper
cut-outs in works which were basically Cubist and where
the addition merely replaced a Cubist planar surface. (In
fact, an undocumented quotation in Hans Richter's
recent book Dada has Grosz saying that he, together with
Heartfield, 'in 1916 . . . invented photomontage in my
studio at the south end of town at five o'clock one May
morning . . . we had no idea of the immense possi-
bilities, or of the thorny but successful career, that
awaited the new invention.')
The Guilty One Remains Unknown (1919) can be seen as a
summation of the artist's use of photomontage at this
time of his life. Even here, certain parts of the assemblage,
the landscape views at the upper right, the table top at
the lower edge, are in the mode of the Cubist collage,
that is, the addition of another material as a substitute