A blue chair is heaped with clothes before a blue cloth in the background.

Blue Chair, The

Grosz, George

1938

Artwork Information

  • Title:

    Blue Chair, The

  • Artist:

    Grosz, George

  • Artist Bio:

    German, 1893–1959

  • Date:

    1938

  • Medium:

    Oil on canvas

  • Dimensions:

    26 x 20 in.

  • Credit Line:

    Wichita Art Museum, Roland P. Murdock Collection

  • Object Number:

    M6.39

  • Display:

    Not Currently on Display

About the Artwork

During the years 1936-38, Grosz’ preoccupation with Europe’s troubles momentarily gave way to other facets of artistic expression. Exuberant landscapes, nudes, and still lifes dominated his subject mater. He concerned himself with the pleasures of form, color, and texture: “My painting The Blue Chair is a composition and study of textures. The beauty of different surfaces, shining and dull reflections, build up into a flowing composition.”1

John I. H. Baur has noted that Grosz’ renewed interest in oils at this time produced a style “…which is quite different from the realism of his drawings or the decorative patterning of his watercolors. Its most striking feature is a baroque movement that swirls and twists in varied rhythms in and out of the picture plane. In The Blue Chair the heaped clothes seem to writhe with a life of their own.”2

1      Letter from Grosz to Elizabeth Navas, October 25, 1940.

2      John I. H. Baur, George Grosz, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, Macmillan Co., New York, 1954, p. 32, 34.