The Hero

1928–1933 · Résidence

Wilmersdorf

June 1932

An invitation to teach in New York

Bitterly anti-Nazi, Grosz accepts an invitation to teach the summer semester at the Art Students League of New York; in October 1932 he returns to Germany.

1933

A break with the past: a new style and subjects

In America Grosz resolves to make a clean break with his past and changes his style and subject matter: in place of his corrosive vision of the city he paints conventional nudes and many landscape watercolours. In his autobiography he writes that much that had frozen within him in Germany melted in America and that he deliberately destroyed a part of his past.

12 – 23 January 1933

Emigration to the United States

On 12 January 1933 Grosz and his family emigrate to the United States; their ship docks in New York on 23 January, a week before Hitler comes to power in Berlin.

1933–1945

His work is classed as “degenerate art”

In Nazi Germany Grosz's work is classed as 'degenerate art'.

1933–1955

Teaching at the Art Students League

Grosz teaches at the Art Students League of New York until 1955; his students include Romare Bearden, who was influenced by his collage style, Joseph Glasco and Robert Cenedella, whom he mentored from 1957 to 1959.