Street Scene c. 1925

George Grosz made this drawing, Street Scene, with ink on paper. Just look at this frenetic, scratchy line! It’s like he’s trying to capture a moment that’s already slipping away. You know, sometimes drawing feels like that, a race against time, trying to nail down something fleeting. The starkness of the ink emphasizes the angularity and harshness of the figures and architecture. The buildings lean and loom over these characters, who are themselves so sharply rendered they seem almost grotesque. Then there’s that eye floating in the sky! I love the way Grosz uses line to create depth, but also to flatten the space, pushing everything to the surface. It reminds me a bit of Otto Dix’s portraits – that same unflinching gaze, that refusal to prettify or idealize. But Grosz has this nervous energy, this raw, almost desperate quality that's all his own. For me, this work has a lasting power precisely because it embraces the unresolved and the ambiguous.