Sketchbook: Manhattan Skyline and Mice, 1950–51

Green cardboard covers, black cloth spine; thirty-eight pages of
off-white wove paper
23.3 x 15.3 cm
Anonymous gift in gratitude for the friendship and kindness of
Dean Wilbur Joseph Bender
1955.95

George Grosz sailed with his family from Germany just weeks before Hitler was sworn in as chancellor in 1933. Grosz never fully abandoned the exaggerated proportions and startling perspectives that led to the confiscation of hundreds of scathing satirical pieces and earned him a place in the Nazi party's infamous 1937 "Degenerate Art" exhibit. His life as an art professor in postwar America, however, allowed him the time and environment to explore conventional domestic subjects. The contemplative sincerity of his mid-twentieth-century still-life compositions and nude studies counterbalances the vehement sarcasm of his more socially conscious work. The Fogg Art Museum's sketchbook from 1950–51 reveals the extent to which Grosz was successful in his attempts to diversify his style, but it is consistent with his earlier work in its unwavering observation of environment.

More than two hundred Grosz sketchbooks survive. In their pages he captured city views, sign lettering, caricatures, and characters sketched on the street. The Fogg sketchbook, however, composed of urban views assembled while Grosz sat at the apartment window of a patron who had commissioned a painting of the city, is narrowly focused.(1)Grosz’s patron was Kathleen Winsor, author of the novel Forever Amber. Beeke Sell Tower, "Of Mice and Manhattan: Sketchbook 1950/7 in the Fogg Art Museum," in The Sketchbooks of George Grosz, exh. cat. Busch-Reisinger Museum (Cambridge, 1993), 123. On page after page, sometimes hastily but often with great care, Grosz outlined the New York City skyline. Views of the Chrysler and Empire State buildings rise beside the innumerable anonymous buildings that characterize the city. At times the artist's mark confidently crosses the gutters of the book's binding, delineating a wider panorama. Graphite, graphite wash, and watercolor mingle, adding texture and depth to the drawings.

Abruptly, halfway through the sketchbook, architectural studies give way to finely wrought drawings of mice. Even in light of Grosz’s more familiar scenes of violence, the mousetrap drawings are disturbing for their virtuosic detail. They testify to the repulsion and fascination with death that incited his most powerful work. The rodent sketches are punctuated by a nude study and a few carefully rendered drapery studies. These finished drawings are not only stylistically different from Grosz’s political caricatures but also allude to the increasing isolation of his later years. While the New York art world wrestled with expressionistic styles, Grosz rechanneled his considerable energy into more traditional materials and techniques.

Although his late work did not garner the same high level of attention as his political attacks, Grosz was enthusiastic about the stylistic shift. In a 1941 letter, he exclaimed, "Long live painting and the Old Masters." In 1942, he admitted to a correspondent, "I have always been a secret classic and romantic."(2)Hans Hess, George Grosz (New York, 1974), 217. In a 1969 letter to the New York Times, one of Grosz's students recounted, "He spoke of his tremendous admiration for Raphael and Ingres, saying that his teaching would be founded particularly on classical draftsmanship." In fact, Grosz hoped to publish the Fogg sketchbook drawings, and wrote to their owner in May 1955, "Dear Leon, would you do me the great favor and have all the mice drawings from the scetchbook [sic] of mine fotographed [sic], you see a publisher in Berlin is going to publish a book of my drawings from nature and wants very much to enclude [sic] those animal drawings. . . . (Those drawings range close to Pisanellos.)"(3)George Grosz to Leon Harris, May 31, 1955. Harvard Art Museum Archives. Proud enough to compare his work with the obsessive naturalism of a fifteenth-century Italian master, Grosz had prudently signed each page.

What is perhaps most characteristic of Grosz's work is the vigor with which he imbued each drawing. The Fogg sketchbook allows a glimpse at the intensity of Grosz's observation and the versatility of his talent.

1. Grosz’s patron was Kathleen Winsor, author of the novel Forever Amber. Beeke Sell Tower, "Of Mice and Manhattan: Sketchbook 1950/7 in the Fogg Art Museum," in The Sketchbooks of George Grosz, exh. cat. Busch-Reisinger Museum (Cambridge, 1993), 123.

2. Hans Hess, George Grosz (New York, 1974), 217. In a 1969 letter to the New York Times, one of Grosz's students recounted, "He spoke of his tremendous admiration for Raphael and Ingres, saying that his teaching would be founded particularly on classical draftsmanship."

3. George Grosz to Leon Harris, May 31, 1955. Harvard Art Museum Archives.