Gefangen (Prisoners of War)

George Grosz

1893–1959

Gefangen (Prisoners of War), 1915

Where object was made: Germany

Material/technique: transfer lithograph; laid paper

Dimensions:
Image Dimensions Height/Width (Height x Width): 220 x 207 mm
Sheet/Paper Dimensions (Height x Width): 314 x 242 mm
Image Dimensions Height/Width (Height x Width): 8 11/16 x 8 1/8 in
Sheet/Paper Dimensions (Height x Width): 12 3/8 x 9 1/2 in
Mat Dimensions (Height x Width): 19 x 14 in

Credit line: Gift of Dr. Franklin D. Murphy, Chancellor

Accession number: 1957.0015

Not on display

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Exhibition Label: "Printed Art and Social Radicalism," Jun-2002, Stephen Goddard The events of the first World War made a powerful impression on all who experienced it. One of the artistic reactions to the war was the founding of the dada movement in neutral Switzerland. Early dada in Zurich, Switzerland, is usually identified as a revolutionary and nihilistic movement, prior to the group's more explosive political phase in Berlin, Germany. Grosz was an important member of the Berlin dada movement and was active in communist and anarchist circles. In the two prints exhibited here, both done during the war and prior to the advent of dada, Grosz displays his formidable ability to satirize the military and to instill in us the horrors of war. Exhibition Label: “Machine in a Void: World War I & the Graphic Arts,” Mar-2010, Steve Goddard Grosz volunteered for military duty on November 11, 1914, but his experiences as a soldier quickly turned him against the War and ultimately contributed to his becoming a scathing satirist of militarism. In this dreary scene of enemy capture, the ground is cluttered with the dead, while scratchy marks suggest barbed wire and little wildflowers. The same year that this work was produced, Grosz wrote, “the time I spent in the stranglehold of militarism was a period of constant resistance-and I know there was not one thing I did which did not utterly disgust me.”