GROSZ, George (German, 1893-1959). Lithograph: "Das Vaterunser" ("The Lord's Prayer"). [Berlin, ca. 1923]. Black and white offset lithograph by the German artist, depicting a satirical execution scene of an aristocrat serving as the executioner to a man of seemingly lower social station, who utters, on his knees, "Vater Der Unser Du Bist Im Himmel" ("Our Father Who Art In Heaven"). Numbered 3 from the edition of 180, signed in pencil to the lower right. Sight 11 1/2 x 8 1/2". Matted and framed under glass. Frame 20 x 17". Das Vaterunser (plate, folio 102) from Ecce Homo 1922–23 (original executed in 1921).

The influential German artist George Grosz was known especially for his caricatural drawings and paintings of Berlin life during the 1920s following World War I. In 1914, knowing that his conscription was imminent, he had enlisted in the army, but he was soon discharged with—depending on the source—either "brain fever" or a sinus infection. He returned to Berlin for a short time to write of the filth and idiocy of his experience; in many ways, Grosz was a young artist home from war—angry, energetic, and ready to blast the establishment. In 1920, at the First International Dada Fair, the portfolio of his wartime line drawings—mostly of arrogant German officers and the mutilation and destruction they inflicted—was seized, and he was prosecuted and fined for defaming the army's reputation. In 1923, he provoked the government again, resulting in the confiscation of fifty-two of the hundred lithographs published as Ecce Homo for allegedly pornographic portrayals of female nudes. (Somerville, Kris. "The Satirical Art of George Grosz." The Missouri Review 30, no. 3 (2007): 89- 99) A prominent member of the Berlin Dada and New Objectivity group during the Weimar Republic, he emigrated to the United States in 1933, and became a naturalized citizen in 1938. Abandoning the style and subject matter of his earlier work, he exhibited regularly and taught for many years at the Art Students League of New York. In 1956, he returned to Berlin, where he died.

Minor wear to frame. Fine.