Max Herrmann-Neiße, born Max Herrmann (1886–1941), 1927

A bald, domed head, a nose with an arabesque-like curve, a distinct, protruding mouth framed by a deep nasolabial groove, curved lips, a hunched back, long, delicate hands – this lithograph by George Grosz (1893–1959), a bust portrait rendered in three-quarter view and drawn with confident strokes, is not a caricature but rather an impressively naturalistic likeness of the German lyricist, dramatist and novelist Max Herrmann-Neiße (1886–1941). Born in the Silesian town of Neiße, the brilliant writer performed his poetry in cabarets, and was a striking and well-known figure in 1930s Berlin on account of his hyposomia, or dwarfism. He mixed in Socialist and anarchistic circles. The socio-critical German-American painter, graphic artist and caricaturist Grosz, who with his unsparingly revealing depictions derided the rigid bourgeois morality of the Weimar Republic and leveled strong criticism against social inequality, showed the writer as an intellectual.

MH, 2023