A Married Couple (Ehepaar) (1930)

George Grosz

watercolour on paper

Tate, London, Liverpool and St Ives

Classification:

Drawing and Watercolour

Materials:

Watercolour, Paper

Physical Object Description:

Inscribed: 'Grosz' bottom left and (possibly by another hand) 'EHE PAAR.1930' on the verso.

Dimensions:

66 x 47.3 (support) cm

Accession Number:

T00019

Credit:

Presented by the Contemporary Art Society, 1955

Scheme:

Gift

Ownership history:

Purchased from the artist by Alfred Flechtheim (1878-1937), Berlin and London; by whom gifted to the Contemporary Art Society, 1936; on loan to Charles Robert Chisman (1874-1955) of Art Exhibitions Bureau, 1938; presented to the Tate Gallery, 1955

Relationship:

Charles Robert Chisman Tate, London, Liverpool and St Ives Alfred Flechtheim

Subject:

Couple, Man and Wife, People, Expressionism, New-Objectivity

A Married Couple (Ehepaar), 1930 was purchased from the artist by the avant-garde German Jewish art dealer Alfred Flechtheim (1878-1937) who gifted it, along with two other works on paper by Grosz, to the Contemporary Art Society in 1936. In 1933 Flechtheim had been persecuted by the Nazis and had his Düsseldorf gallery confiscated. Penniless, he fled to Paris and then to London where he worked anonymously for the Mayor Gallery and organised exhibits of the artworks of exiled German artists. All three pictures were on loan to Charles Robert Chisman (1874-1955) of the Art Exhibitions Bureau from 1938 and this watercolour, or coloured drawing, for a portfolio entitled "Natural History of the German Middle Class" that the artist had been working on before his own emigration to the USA in 1933, and a ‘Drawing for “The Mirror of the Bourgeoisie”- Illustration for “Der Spiesser-Spiegel” (The Street; 9 figures)’, 1925 were presented to the Tate Gallery in 1955.

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