Grosz, George

German-born US expressionist painter and graphic artist. He was a founder of the Berlin Dada group in 1918, and excelled in savage satirical drawings criticizing the government and the military establishment. After numerous prosecutions, he fled his native Berlin in 1932 and went to the USA.

His brilliant drawings make him a leader in the school of German expressionism, but from 1933 he and his work disappeared into oblivion so far as the majority of Germans were concerned, since his paintings were among those condemned in the Nazi dictator Hitler's exhibition ‘Entartete Kunst’ (Degenerate Art). Even in the late 1920s, long before Hitler had come to power, Grosz's Ecce Homo, showing Christ on the Cross wearing a gas mask and army boots, brought him to court on a charge of blasphemy. He is also associated with the Neue Sachlichkeit (new objectivity) movement.