Our Notes & References

First edition of these striking anti-war caricatures, inscribed by Grosz to Bekus: “mein lieben Freunde Marcel Bekus mit herzlicher Widmung… Berlin März 1928”. Bekus (1888-1939) was a Warsaw-born anarchist who had participated in the 1905 Revolution in Russia and was deported to Siberia. After the 1917 Revolution he moved to France where he circulated in avant-garde and anarchist groups, becoming friend with many artists and intellectuals. He took part in the Spanish Civil War and died in Paris in his early 50s.

Fascinated by the revolutionary process, Bekus began collecting books early on and built a significant political library. “La personnalité et le parcours de Marcel Bekus méritent attention. […] Son petit-fils, ouvrant sa cave quelques cinquante ans après découvre de nombreuses brochures et affiches parfaitement conservés. ” (Matériaux pour l’histoire de notre temps, Année 1991, XXIV, N°24, pp.29-30)

In 1928 Berthold Brecht, Grosz, Feliz Gasparra and Leo Lania collaborated with the director Erwin Piscator on a stage production of Jaroslav Hašek’s satirical masterpiece The Good Soldier Švejk. “The resulting freewheeling stage adaptation […] that premiered in 1928 proved to be a landmark production that was an enormous success in every respect and had the conservatives up in the arms. The scene design by Grosz, together with the sardonic drawings of his animated films, led to his being sentenced for criminal blasphemy – two months in prison and a fine of 2000 marks” (Lyon and Breuer, 212).

Hintergrund is a selection from the several hundred drawings Grosz made for the production. His diverse expressionist and at the same time stylized and decorative images are united by their dark sarcasm and disturbing details, depicting military violence and corruption of the degenerate-looking German officials, pushing their citizens to war. This example of Grosz’s portfolio is complete, which is rather rare because the sheets 2, 9 and 10, considered to be the most blasphemous, were often destroyed after the end of Grosz’s trial and his conviction.

A prominent member of the Berlin Dada and famous for his savagely caricatural compositions, Grosz (1893-1959) emigrated to the United States after an arduous three-year trial, during which the printing blocks were condemned and rendered unusable.

Provenance

From the estate of Geoffrey Elliott (1939-2021), banker of Russian descent, author of books on 20th-c. history. Acquired from Bernard Quaritch Ltd. In 2015. Geoffrey and his wife Fay were noted collectors, especially of Oscar Wilde, Evelyn Waugh and other literary figures. Russia, and Wars were also  important themes: Geoffrey’s grandparents were interned in a Siberian tsarist prison camp before the October Revolution, and he focused most of his published works on the Cold War.

The Elliotts donated a significant part of their collection to the library of Leeds University in 2002, but kept the Russia-related items and continued to acquire a few works too, which we subsequently acquired.

Bibliography

James K. Lyon and Hans Peter Breuer, Brecht Unbound, 1995.