In a series of works from the years 1915 to 1917, Grosz used details that repeatedly recur. These are individual figures and groups of people that populate streets and squares, who hurry and hasten by or have some kind of relationship with each other. We repeatedly meet the grotesque loner, the skulker who gawps at women, turns to stare or chases them. And roaming around in their midst mangy dogs make an appearance time and again, dogs that may lead their own lives but their behaviour seems remarkably similar to the people around them.
This drawing depicts two women who have stopped for a rest on the beach and a gentleman with a hat and stick who is sitting down and looking at the scene. It is only on closer inspection, however, that the risqué details of this seemingly harmless scene emerge. Lasciviously, the woman lying in the foreground points her ample bottom towards the man, while her topless companion shamelessly lets the viewer – not the nearby gentlemen – stare in between her legs. The man seems to find these two women, who are no raving beauties, so erotic that he is touching himself.
As is so often the case in these years, the artist spices up genuine experiences with his imagination and in these both grotesque and humorous drawings, he does not spare the viewer any of the details about what is really going on.

Ralph Jentsch

Literatur: George Grosz, Deutschland über Alles. Editori Riuniti. Rome 1963, Abbildungen bezeichnet als „Prostitute“ und verso „Profilio vampiresco”.