George Grosz
American, born Germany, 1893-1959
Little Man
INV-1600
George Grosz
American, born Germany, 1893-19591917
pen and ink drawingsdrawings (visual works)
Date
1917
Medium
Pen and brush and black ink on cream wove tracing paper
Dimensions
25 × 20.1 cm (9 7/8 × 7 15/16 in.)
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Location
Chicago, IL
Credit
Gift of Celia and David Hilliard
This evocative drawing exemplifies George Grosz’s interest in creating symbolic self-portraits. Here we see Grosz himself seated at a table, with a cityscape behind him and a “little man” before him. During World War I, he often inserted such figures into paintings, drawings, and prints as a means of self-parody and social commentary. In fact, one scholar has suggested that here the “little man” represents the artist in mannequin form and that therefore the work is a double self-portrait.
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