| Eclipse of the Sun | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Artist | George Grosz |
| Year | 1926 |
| Medium | Oil on canvas |
| Dimensions | 207.3 cm× 182.6 cm(81.6 in× 71.9 in) |
| Location | Heckscher Museum of Art, Huntington |
Eclipse of the Sun is an oil-on-canvas painting by German artist George Grosz, painted in 1926. It is held at the Heckscher Museum of Art, in Huntington, New York, where it is the most famous painting. [1] [2]
The painting represents Grosz's harsh indictment of the political and economical realities of Germany during the Weimar Republic, specially the economic interests who dominated the new regimen. It depicts several characters around a table before the backdrop of a burning city. The central figure is the President, Paul von Hindenburg, recognizable by his long moustache and his military uniform with medals. He sits with bared teeth, wearing an ironic crown of laurel at his head. A bloodied sword and a funerary cross on the table in front of Hindenburg are a reminder of his role in World War I, and the lives lost. Four headless financiers are also at the table, in formal attire. A corpulent industrialist, with a top hat, and with small weaponry and a miniature train under his arm, whispers discreetly at the President's ear. The implication is that the headless government ministers cannot think for themselves, and simply obey the commands of the capitalists and the military. [3]
A donkey, wearing blinders decorated with the German eagle, stands facing a feeding trough full of papers while balancing on a board tied to a skeleton. The donkey is interpreted by art historian Ivo Kranzfelder as a symbol of the German people, represented as accepting whatever is put in front of them. [3] At the right, one of the headless men rests his foot on the prison bars below him, through which a prisoner's face is seen. At the top left is a darkened sun illuminated by the American dollar sign. This is a reference to the investment of American finance in the German economy after World War I. [4] [5] [6]
The painting was brought by Grosz to the United States when he moved there in 1933. It was thought lost but was found at the home of a house painter, Thomas Constantine, who had kept it rolled up in his garage for several years. When it was found, it was exhibited at the Harbor Gallery in Cold Spring Harbor. A fund-raising effort by the Heckscher Museum of Art's first professional director led to the museum's acquisition of the painting for $15,000 in 1968. [7]
Wilhelm Heinrich Otto Dix was a German painter and printmaker, noted for his ruthless and harshly realistic depictions of German society during the Weimar Republic and the brutality of war. Along with George Grosz and Max Beckmann, he is widely considered one of the most important artists of the Neue Sachlichkeit.
George Grosz was a German artist known especially for his caricatural drawings and paintings of Berlin life in the 1920s. He was a prominent member of the Berlin Dada and New Objectivity groups during the Weimar Republic. He emigrated to the United States in 1933, and became a naturalized citizen in 1938. Abandoning the style and subject matter of his earlier work, he exhibited regularly and taught for many years at the Art Students League of New York. In 1959 he returned to Berlin, where he died shortly afterwards.
The Musée National d'Art Moderne is the national museum for modern art of France. It is located in the 4th arrondissement of Paris and is housed in the Centre Pompidou. In 2021 it ranked 10th in the list of most visited art museums in the world, with 1,501,040 visitors. It is one of the largest museums for modern and contemporary art in the world.
The Neue Galerie New York is a museum of early twentieth-century German and Austrian art and design located in the William Starr Miller House at 86th Street and Fifth Avenue in New York City. Established in 2001, it is one of the most recent additions to New York City's famed Museum Mile, which runs from 83rd to 105th streets on Fifth Avenue in the Upper East Side of Manhattan.
The Staatsgalerie Stuttgart is an art museum in Stuttgart, Germany, it opened in 1843. In 1984, the opening of the Neue Staatsgalerie designed by James Stirling transformed the once provincial gallery into one of Europe's leading museums.
Rudolf Schlichter was a German painter, engraver and writer. He was one of the most important representatives of the critical-realistic style of verism within the New Objectivity movement. He also wrote some autobiographical books.
Arthur Garfield Dove was an American artist. An early American modernist, he is often considered the first American abstract painter. Dove used a wide range of media, sometimes in unconventional combinations, to produce his abstractions and his abstract landscapes. Me and the Moon from 1937 is a good example of an Arthur Dove abstract landscape and has been referred to as one of the culminating works of his career. Dove made a series of experimental collages in the 1920s. He also experimented with techniques, combining paints like hand mixed oil or tempera over a wax emulsion as exemplified in Dove's 1938 painting Tanks, in the collection of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.
Automat is a 1927 oil painting by the American realist painter Edward Hopper. The painting was first displayed on Valentine's Day 1927 at the opening of Hopper's second solo show, at the Rehn Galleries in New York City. By April it had been sold for $1,200. The painting is today owned by the Des Moines Art Center, in Iowa.
St. Francis in Ecstasy is a painting by Italian Renaissance master Giovanni Bellini, started in 1475 and completed around 1480. Bellini depicted the religious figure of St. Francis of Assisi in a landscape. In 1852, the painting was listed on June 19 at Christie's. It was part of the 1857 Manchester Art Treasures exhibition. In 1915, Henry Clay Frick bought the painting for $170,000, and it remains in the Frick Collection, in New York City.
Three Musicians, also known as Musicians with Masks or Musicians in Masks, is a large oil painting created by Spanish artist Pablo Picasso. He painted two versions of Three Musicians. Both versions were completed in the summer of 1921 in Fontainebleau near Paris, France, in the garage of a villa that Picasso was using as his studio. They exemplify the Synthetic Cubist style; the flat planes of color and "intricate puzzle-like composition" giving the appearance of cutout paper with which the style originated. These paintings each colorfully represent three figures wearing masks. The two figures in the center and left are wearing the costumes of Pierrot and Harlequin from the popular Italian theater Commedia dell'arte, and the figure on the right is dressed as a monk. In one version, there also is a dog underneath the table.
The Heckscher Museum of Art is an American art museum.
Kenneth Hayes Miller was an American painter, printmaker, and teacher.
Juergen von Huendeberg was a German painter often associated with the abstract art of the post-war years.
Robert P. Cenedella, Jr. is an American artist. He became well known for several of his paintings, including commissions by Bacardi, Heinz, Absolut Vodka and Le Cirque.
The Adoration of the Shepherds is a 1644 oil-on-canvas painting by the French artist Georges de La Tour. It is now in the Louvre Museum, in Paris, which purchased it in 1926.
Charlotte Weidler (1895–1983) was a German art dealer, curator and art historian. Her dealings concerning artworks from the collections of Paul Westheim and Alfred Flechtheim during the Nazi–era have been the focus of several high-profile lawsuits.
Metropolis is an oil on canvas painting by the German artist George Grosz, executed in 1916–1917. It belongs to the collection of the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid.
The Poet Max Hermann-Neisse is an oil-on-canvas painting executed in 1927 by German artist George Grosz. It depicts his personal friend, the writer and cabaret critic Max Herrmann-Neisse. The portrait is exemplary of the New Objectivity artistic approach. It is held at the Museum of Modern Art, in New York.
Cain, or Hitler in Hell is an oil-on-canvas painting by German American artist George Grosz, painted in 1944. It is one of the most known paintings of the years when Grosz lived in the United States, from 1933 to 1959, after leaving Germany, shortly after the Nazis seized power. It was part of Grosz's heirs collection until being purchased in 2019 by the Deutsches Historisches Museum, in Berlin, where it has been exhibited since 2020.
The Wanderer is an oil painting on canvas created by the German artist George Grosz. The painting was completed in 1943 and is currently on display at the Memorial Art Gallery in Rochester, New York.