George Grosz

"George Grosz (July 26, 1893 – July 6, 1959) was a German artist known especially for his savagely caricatural drawings of Berlin life in the 1920s. He was a prominent member of the Berlin Dada and New Objectivity group during the Weimar Republic before he emigrated to the United States in 1933."

Similar to Riefenstahl, his artwork was primarily following the events of the first World War. The difference is that while Riefenstahl may have been loyal to the German troops, Grosz despised them. His anti-war movement had him in much trouble throughout his time in Germany, including being arrested in 1919. Soon, he moved to America and became a teacher at the Art Students League of New York.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Grosz


Suicide. 1916. Oil on canvas. 100 x 77.6 cm. Tate Gallery, London, UK.

Lovesick. 1916. Oil on canvas. 99.7 x 76.5 cm. Private collection.

Republica Automatons. 1920. Watercolor on paper. 60 x 47.3 cm. The Museum of Modern Arts, New York, NY, USA.

Eclipse of Sun. 1926. Oil on canvas. 210 x 184 cm. Heckscher Museum, Huntington, NY, USA.

Self-Portrait, Warning. 1927. Oil on canvas. 98 x 79 cm. Galerie Nierendorf, Berlin, Germany.

http://www.abcgallery.com/G/grosz/grosz.html


So overall, I'm finding few similarities between this man and Leni Riefenstahl, but they both appear to be genius artists. With such bizarre imagery and caricatures, I find George Grosz a bit more similar with Otto Dix.

Riefenstahl Biography

For a while, Riefenstahl studied painting and dancing. She continued to dance and made it far in her career until she was injured in the knee. She carried on as an actress and soon a director, writer and producer. Her movie, "Triumph of the Will", was highly praised until the German World War it was based on came to an end and it was seen by many as sheer propaganda. Her two-part "Olympic Games" movie went through a similar process. Later, she went on with a photographing career to take snapshots of her stay with a tribe called the Nuba. These photos were published to books and magazines. At 71, she took a diving course and then became an underwater photographer as well. That's about as far as I feel required to write, but you can't help but admire a woman who can pull off a life as a dancer, actor, writer, director, producer and photographer and do so well at all of them. Next, I compare her with some other German artists...

http://www.leni-riefenstahl.de/eng/bio.html