George Grosz (1893-1959). Cape Cod, 1939. Watercolor on paper. 19-3/8 x 15-1/2 inches (49.2 x 39.4 cm) (sheet). Signed, ...

Description

George Grosz (1893-1959)
Cape Cod, 1939
Watercolor on paper
19-3/8 x 15-1/2 inches (49.2 x 39.4 cm) (sheet)
Signed, titled, and dated lower right: Grosz / Cape Cod / 39

PROVENANCE:
The artist's studio, Douglaston, New York;
Associated American Artists, New York;
Cranbrook Museum, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan;
Sotheby Parke Bernet, New York, May 5, 1972, lot 185;
Collection of Dr. and Mrs. Henry and Mary Ann Gans, acquired from the above;
Heritage Auctions, Dallas, Texas, May 3, 2017, lot 68108;
Private collection, acquired from the above.

EXHIBITED:
Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, "40th Annual Watercolor and Print Exhibition," October 25-November 29, 1942, no. E1672;
Cranbrook Academy of Art, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, "Light and the Painter," September 5-28, 1952, no. 47.

Ralph Jentsch, author of the George Grosz catalogue raisonné, writes about the present work:

"For the first time in 1938, Grosz spent a short period of time on Cape Cod, the dune landscape on the East Coast, with the wildly overgrown, piled-up sand dunes, a refuge for individuals, writers and celebrities. From 1939 on, Grosz spent numerous summer months here every year. This is where he created the fabulous watercolors, gouaches and oil paintings of nature and the multitude of nudes in the dunes.

"It was in 1939 that Grosz [won] the Watson F. Blair Prize for a Cape Cod watercolor, exhibited at the Art Institute of Chicago... In the foreword to his monograph published in 1944 by Bittner in New York, Grosz states: 'Great cities had always fascinated me. I had felt the spell of huge towers with their myriads of human ants and termites, each engrossed in a tiny world of his own. I had felt the hidden joys and terrors and fears of urban life. Yet Cape Cod offered me all this and more. Here too were menace of hovering storm clouds and breaking waves, the sweetness of grass and sand and trees...'

"It was 1939 on Cape Cod when the shocking news of the outbreak of the Second World War reached the artist, the very watercolor reflecting his reaction. The colors of the work are gloomy, with the sun obscured, as dark, creepy shadows are starting to cover the dunes. It is a scene that captures the terror that will soon conquer the world.

"To execute this work, Grosz used only a few lines of pen and ink, but worked mainly watercolor wet into wet, showing what a brilliant master he [was] of this technique."

NOTE:
We wish to thank Ralph Jentsch for his gracious assistance in cataloguing this watercolor, which will be included in the forthcoming catalogue raisonné of works on paper by George Grosz. A photocopy of a certificate of authenticity accompanies this lot.




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