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German History in Documents and Images
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Cover, George Grosz, The Face of the Ruling Class (1921)
George Grosz (1893-1959) published this collection of political cartoons at the height of his involvement with the Berlin Dadaists. It was one of several Grosz portfolios published by Wieland Herzfelde’s Malik-Verlag, an anti-war, revolutionary press begun in 1916 that also sponsored numerous Dada publications. The collection’s fifty-seven drawings are infused by the revolutionary (and counter-revolutionary) atmosphere that characterized the initial postwar years. The drawings include caricatures of figures such as Friedrich Ebert, who is portrayed as a fat, cigar-smoking bourgeois with a Kaiser Wilhelm goatee. In the 1920s, Grosz became internationally recognized as one of Germany’s most significant critical artists.