"Akte" (Alte in Kniestrümpfen)

George Grosz

George Grosz is perhaps best known for his caustic, politically trenchant watercolors and pen-and-ink caricatures of Weimar Germany. Grosz’s dark, expressive drawings captured political figures and everyday Germans through a style informed by popular illustration and the abstraction of Futurism and Cubism. The artist critiqued the social and political corruption of his day, as well as the rising threat of nationalism. His traumatic experiences of World War I informed his mordant tone. During his lifetime, Grosz was the subject of retrospectives at the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art. His work has sold for eight figures at auction and belongs in the collections of multiple institutions, including the Museum of Modern Art, the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, and the Tate.