George Grosz
American, born Germany, 1893-1959
Last Day
INV-3328
George Grosz
American, born Germany, 1893-19591934
watercolordrawings (visual works)
Date
1934
Medium
Watercolor, with touches of gouache, over graphite, selectively gum(?) varnished, on ivory wove paper
Dimensions
70 × 52.5 cm (27 9/16 × 20 11/16 in.)
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Location
Chicago, IL
Credit
Gift of Mrs. Thomas Hart (Ruth Page) Fisher
Grosz left Germany only eighteen days before Hitler seized power in January 1933. Because of his relentless political satire and criticism of the state, he would undoubtedly have been the target of persecution and execution by the new Nazi regime. Between 1933, when he arrived in New York, and 1936, he worked on a series of watercolors representing his first impressions of the metropolis. The Last Day does seem to be based on the Manhattan skyline, but Grosz's treatnent of it is more a foreshadowing of his apocalyptic paintings of the late 1930s. Grosz mounted an exhibition of his watercolors at Alfred Stieglitz's An American Place gallery in 1934-35.
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