Massage

In this drawing, one can see a new realism emerging in Grosz’s work during the latter half of the 1920s—a shift associated with his involvement in the New Objectivity (Neue Sachlichkeit) movement. The artists working in the New Objectivity mode often described themselves as Verists, holding a mirror up to the post-World War I German social order and exposing its inequalities and failures through an extremely moral vision.

By 1930, Grosz was no longer a Communist party member, and the period of his most bitter satire had ended. While Massage displays the kind of attention to line, volume, and mass that was of interest to the New Objectivists, his skepticism towards the subject is muted. This drawing of corpulent, self-indulgent bourgeois bodies definitely suggests a certain cynicism toward the extravagance of the middle class—a cynicism slightly tempered by the vulnerability of the scene’s naked performers.