The Robber

A lithograph by the German artist and illustrator, George Grosz (1893-1959) titled, “Die Räuber” or The Robber completed in 1922. The work was published by the Malik Publishing House or Malik-Verlag a publisher that existed from 1916 to 1947 and was known for their pro-communist stance. The work depicts a German Officer, after the 1st World War (1914-1918) as a beggar next to the road and the rich walking around him. It is part of a series published on the subject. This work was a donation by the artist to the University of Pretoria after a German group exhibition at the MacFadyen Memorial Hall in 1934. Short Biography: George Grosz was born in 1893 in Berlin Germany. He was trained as an illustrator and drew for journals like the Lustige Blätter and Ulk from around 1910. The First World War and the subsequent, Great Depression turned the artist to revolutionary politics and he began to produce cartoons that were often described as obscene, bitter and treasonable. Grosz was taken to court several times for deeply offending the bourgeois. After the Nazi’s took over the German government, Grosz began to target them, but for fear of retribution he had to flee the country where he immigrated in 1933 to the United States. Grosz returned to West Berlin in 1959 where he passed away shortly after his arrival.