Grosz, George

orig. Georg Grosz

(born July 26, 1893, Berlin, W.Ger.—died July 6, 1959, West Berlin) German-born U.S. painter, draftsman, and illustrator. After studying art in Dresden and Berlin, he began selling caricatures to magazines. During World War I he served in the German army; discharged as unfit in 1917, he moved into a garret studio in Berlin, and by the end of the war he had developed a graphic style that combined a highly expressive use of line with ferocious social satire. His depictions of war and depravity provided some of the most vitriolic social criticism of his time. From 1918 to 1920 he was a prominent member of the Dada group in Berlin. His Face of the Ruling Class (1921) and Ecce Homo (1922), collections of drawings featuring greedy capitalists, war profiteering, and social decadence, earned him an international reputation. In 1932 he immigrated to the U.S., where he taught at New York's Art Students League while continuing to produce magazine cartoons, nudes, and landscapes.

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