The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of April 18, 2024

Student (Costume Study for Goll's "Methusalem") (recto) Amalie, Ida, and Set Designs (Studies for Goll's "Methusalem") (verso)

1922

George Grosz

(German, 1893–1959)

Germany, Berlin, 20th century

Pen and brown-black ink (applied with the aid of drafting tools) and watercolor

Sheet: 52.7 x 38 cm (20 3/4 x 14 15/16 in.)

Contemporary Collection of The Cleveland Museum of Art 1966.50

Location: not on view

Did You Know?

George Grosz's interest in mechanization extended to his drawing practice: he used drafting tools, like a straight-edge and compass, to execute works such as this one.

Description

Student belongs to a series of drawings George Grosz made for Iwan Goll’s 1921 play Methusalem: The Eternal Bourgeois. This satirical drama pitted a radical student against Methusalem, a bourgeois capitalist. Grosz’s drawing shows the student’s costume; the actor would have spoken from behind a full-size, mask-like shield made from various machine parts and other commonplace objects. The hinged metal head reveals the inner workings of a corrupt or incompetent mind. In Grosz’s characterization, neither the radical student nor the bourgeois capitalist was more righteous than the other. Grosz was an outlier to Expressionism, rejecting the idea of the artist as mystical prophet in favor of the artist as an ordinary worker, an idea inspired by the socialist rhetoric of the day.

?-?
(Galerien Flechtheim, Berlin/Düsseldorf)
?-1966
(Eugene Victor Thaw, New York, NY, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH)
1966-
The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
Provenance Footnotes
1 according to old label
Baur, John Ireland Howe. George Grosz. Exh. Cat. New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 1954. Mentioned: pp. 16-17, no. 36; Reproduced: p. 16
Rubin, William S. Dada and Surrealist Art. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1968. Mentioned: p. 88; Reproduced: plate 76
West, Richard. "Figure for Yvan Goll's Methusalem." Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 55, no. 4 (April 1968): 90-94. Mentioned: pp. 90-94; Reproduced: p. 91
Cleveland Museum of Art. Art of the Twentieth Century in the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: Dept. of Art History & Education, CMA, 1969. Mentioned: p. 3 archive.org
Ashton, Dore. "A Planned Coincidence." Art in America 57 (September-October 1969): 36-47. Mentioned and reproduced: pp. 40-41
Tendenzen der Zwanziger Jahre. Exh. Cat. Berlin: Akademie der Künste, 1977. Mentioned: p. 3, p. 261; Reproduced: p. 3, p. 51
Ades, Dawn. Dada and Surrealism Reviewed. Exh. Cat. London: Hayward Gallery, 1978. Mentioned: p. 94
Wohl, Helmut. DADA: Berlin, Cologne, Hannover. Exh. Cat. Boston: Institute of Contemporary Art, 1980. Mentioned and reproduced: p. 12, p. 26
Breitman, Ellen. Art and the Stage. Exh. Cat. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1981. Mentioned and reproduced: p. 29, no. 14
DeShong, Alan. The Theatrical Designs of George Grosz. Ann Arbor, MI: UMI Research Press, 1982. Mentioned: p. 43; Reproduced: plate 14
Webb, Michael. "The Robots Are Here! The Robots Are Here!" Design Quarterly, no. 121 (1983): 4-21. Mentioned: p. 11; Reproduced: p. 10
Myers, Trent. Robots: History, Fantasy, & Reality. Exh. Cat. Madison, WI: Madison Art Center, 1985. Mentioned and reproduced: p. 3, insert
Taylor, Sue and Richard A. Born. The David and Alfred Smart Museum of Art: A Guide to the Collection. New York: Hudson Hills Press, 1990. Mentioned and reproduced: p. 113
Cleveland Museum of Art, Diane DeGrazia, and Carter E. Foster. Master Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art in association with Rizzoli International Publications, New York, 2000. Mentioned: P. 246-47, 297; Reproduced: P. 247-248, cat. no. 104
Sims, Lowery Stokes. The Persistence of Geometry: Form, Content, and Culture in the Collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2006. Mentioned and Reproduced: P. 65, no. 63
Provenance Footnotes
1 according to old label
Graphic Discontent: German Expressionism on Paper. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (January 14-May 27, 2018).
The German Tradition. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (April 27-June 27, 1993).
Directions in Drawing II: The Human Figure. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (November 5, 1991-January 12, 1992).
Cross Section: Graphic Art in Germany after the First World War. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (October 10, 1989-January 7, 1990).
Robots: History, Fantasy, & Reality. Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, Madison, WI (organizer) (December 1-January 19, 1985).
Art and the Stage. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (May 22-August 16, 1981).
DADA: Berlin, Cologne, Hannover. The Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, Boston, MA (November 5, 1980-January 4, 1981); Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, TX (March 3-April 19, 1981).
Dada Revisited. Akron Art Museum, Akron, OH (organizer) (June 30-September 15, 1978).
Dada and Surrealism Reviewed. Hayward Gallery, London, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (January 11-March 27, 1978).
Tendencies of the Twenties. Staatliche Museen Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin 19, Germany (August 14, 1977-October 16, 1978); Städelsches Kunstinstitut im Städtischen Kunstinstitut Frankfurt am Main, Franfurt am Main, Germany (November 10, 1977-January 8, 1978).
Dada Revisited. Akron Art Museum (organizer).
Golden Anniversary of Acquisitions. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (September 10-October 16, 1966).
George Grosz. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (January - February 1954).
Provenance Footnotes
1 according to old label
{{cite web|title=Student (Costume Study for Goll's "Methusalem") (recto) Amalie, Ida, and Set Designs (Studies for Goll's "Methusalem") (verso)|url=false|author=George Grosz|year=1922|access-date=18 April 2024|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}
Provenance Footnotes
1 according to old label

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1966.50