Coming to the DMA: George Grosz

Grosz's "Republican Automatons" (public domain)

Flower of the Prairie: George Grosz

Coming to the Dallas Museum of Art

May 20–August 19, 2012
Chilton Gallery II

George Grosz was a German dadaist and satirist. In 1952 Leon Harris, Jr., the young vice president of the Harris and Company department store (Sanger-Harris anyone?) invited Grosz to Dallas. Harris had commissioned Grosz to create a series of paintings illustrating the landscape, economy, and society of our city for the store’s 65th anniversary celebrations. Grosz’s series, called Impressions of Dallas, was exhibited at the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts in Fair Park in October 1952 and in New York in 1954, but the works have since remained mostly forgotten.

That's about to change. On the 60th anniversary of the series’ first presentation, the DMA will present Flower of the Prairie: George Grosz in Dallas. In addition to numerous photos that document the city as the artist saw it, the exhibition will feature twenty of Grosz's works from the "Dallas" series.

Along with the exhibition, the DMA will launch its first e-catalogue that will provide the the history of the paintings along with many of Grosz's additional paintings, watercolors, drawings, prints, and Dallas photos.