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Artwork Details
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Title:The Ambassador of Good Will
Artist:George Grosz (American (born Germany), Berlin 1893–1959 Berlin)
Date:1943
Medium:Oil on canvas
Dimensions:27 x 33 in. (68.6 x 83.8 cm)
Classification:Paintings
Credit Line:George A. Hearn Fund, 1943
Object Number:43.159.4
Inscription: Signed, dated, and inscribed (lower right): Grosz / pinx /43; (on back): "The ambassador / of good will" (from the cyklus: The Thin & the Fat) / George Grosz / Douglaston 1943 January
[Associated American Artists, New York, 1943; sold to MMA]
New York. Whitney Museum of American Art. "1943–44 Annual Exhibition of Contemporary American Art: Sculpture, Paintings, Watercolors, and Drawings," November 23, 1943–January 4, 1944, no. 37.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "20th Century Painters: A Special Exhibition of Oils, Water Colors and Drawings Selected from the Collections of American Art in the Metropolitan Museum," June 16–October 29, 1950, unnum. brochure (p. 6).
New York. Whitney Museum of American Art. "George Grosz," January 14–March 17, 1954, no. 16.
Huntington, N. Y. Heckscher Museum. "Heritage of Freedom: A Salute to America's Foreign-Born Artists," July 4–August 29, 1976, no. 34 (as "Ambassador of Good Will").
Montclair, N. J. Montclair Art Museum. "Heritage of Freedom: A Salute to America's Foreign-Born Artists," September 12–October 31, 1976, no. 34.
Hempstead, N.Y. Hofstra University, Emily Lowe Gallery. "George Grosz: An Artist for 1984," September 9–October 21, 1984, unnumbered cat.
Berlin. Neue Nationalgalerie. "George Grosz: Berlin—New York," December 21, 1994–April 17, 1995, not in catalogue.
Düsseldorf. Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen. "George Grosz: Berlin—New York," May 6–July 30, 1995, not in catalogue.
Staatsgalerie Stuttgart. "George Grosz: Berlin—New York," September 7–December 3, 1995, not in catalogue.
"Museums Acquire 16 Pieces of Art." New York Times (December 30, 1943), p. 15.
"Whitney Sales." Art News 42 (January 1–14, 1944), p. 6.
Holger Cahill. "In Our Time." Magazine of Art 39 (November 1946), p. 320, ill.
Robert Beverly Hale. 100 American Painters of the 20th Century: Works Selected from the Collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1950, ill. p. 83.
Doris Brian. "The Metropolitan's American Policy—A Long View, No Blind Flying." Art Digest 24 (July 1, 1950), p. 9.
"Panorama of American 20th Century Art Exhibited." Santa Barbara News-Press (June 18, 1950), p. C-5.
John I. H. Baur. George Grosz. Exh. cat., Whitney Museum of American Art. New York, 1954, pp. 46, 60, 63, no. 16, ill. p. 47.
Dr. Ernest Harms. "Short-Term Styles in Modern Art." Studio 154 (November 1957), ill. p. 137.
Marshall B. Davidson. The American Heritage History of the Artists' America. New York, 1973, p. 352, ill.
Gail Gelburd. George Grosz: An Artist for 1984. Exh. cat., Hofstra University, Emily Lowe Gallery. Hempstead, N. Y., 1984, unpaginated, ill.
Hans Hess. George Grosz. New Haven, 1985, p. 223, fig. 207.
Birgit Möckel. George Grosz in Amerika: 1932–1959. PhD diss., Universität Karlsruhe. Frankfurt, 1997, pp. 148–49, 166, 565, no. 656, pl. 127.
Beatriz Cordero inThe Irascibles: Painters Against the Museum, New York, 1950. Ed. Bradford R. Collins et al. Exh. cat., Fundación Juan March. Madrid, 2020, p. 82.
George Grosz (American (born Germany), Berlin 1893–1959 Berlin)
1920–21
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