2c  Grosz Man

George Grosz, (Man and Woman), undated, oil on paperboard, mounted on canvas, gift of Vera Lazuk.

1c  Gosz American

George Grosz, “American Tourists in Berlin,” 1928, ink and watercolor on paper with gelatin glaze, gift of Huntington Township Art League.

FOR 1-26

‘SOCIAL COMMENTARY’ AT HECKSCHER FEB 6 w/2 cuts

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HUNTINGTON, N.Y. — The Heckscher Museum of Art will display a selection of works from its permanent collection in “Social Commentary: The Art of George Grosz and Larry Fink,” on view February 6–April 8.

The exhibit features works on paper and paintings by the German Dada artist George Grosz, who was born in Berlin and studied at the Dresden Academy and the Berlin Kunstgewerbeschule before volunteering for the army.

Like many other artists of his day, Grosz embraced the Great War (later called World War I) as “the war to end all wars,” but was quickly disillusioned. Considering himself a propagandist of the social revolution, the artist helped to create the image that most people have of Berlin and the Weimer Republic in the 1920s.

In his drawings and paintings — which assimilate elements from Cubism, Futurism and, particularly, de Chirico’s Pittura metafisica — Grosz established archetypal images of postwar German militarists and profiteers in which priest, soldier, businessman, editor and aristocrat are mercilessly caricatured.

Bitterly anti-Nazi, Grosz left German in 1932 and was invited to teach at the Art Students’ League in New York in 1933. He became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1938 and lived in Huntington for a number of years.

The Heckscher’s exhibition of Grosz’s works coincides with The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s exhibit, “Glitter and Doom: German Portraits from the 1920s,” which showcases the Heckscher Museum’s renowned Grosz painting “Eclipse of the Sun,” 1926, as a focal point of the exhibition.

The Heckscher’s exhibition also presents approximately 35 photographs by Larry Fink (b 1941) from his “Social Graces” series. Grosz’s satirical images served as a great inspiration to Fink, whose images were created largely in the 1970s.

Fink’s photographs capture moments of interaction and gesture in his subjects, often in domestic surroundings — bringing a new vitality and directness to ordinary American family scenes. Unlike some social commentators, however, Fink suggests a warmth and empathy with the subjects. In this way, the artist’s work lacks the “distance” to be satire, and some believe is all the stronger for it.

The museum is in Heckscher Park, Main Street. For information, www.heckscher.org or 631-351-3250.