HUNTINGTON, N.Y.-The Heckscher Museum of Art presents George Grosz: Selections from the Permanent Collection, on view through August 14, 2005. Eclipse of the Sun by George Grosz is one of the masterpieces of twentieth century painting. As potent a statement as Pablo Picasso’s Guernica, itself a powerful indictment of the atrocities of war, Eclipse of the Sun offers a bitter castigation of the Weimar military establishment. In response to recent press and heightened public interest, we are delighted to place Eclipse of the Sun in context with an installation of work by Grosz from our Permanent Collection.

A leading German Expressionist, George Grosz was born in Berlin in 1893. Educated at the Academy in Dresden, he also attended the Art School attached to the Museum of Arts and Crafts in the city of his birth. His extraordinary ability as a draughtsman was apparent from a young age, as evidenced by Street, created at the tender age of nineteen while Grosz was still a student in Berlin.

Although a volunteer at the start of the First World War, Grosz saw little action. Mistakenly sentenced to be executed in 1918, he developed a deep anger against war and formulated a wealth of imagery with which to express it. The German army became one of the principal targets of his savage and telling satires. The undated ink and wash drawing Entkrafted (Worn Out) clearly depicts the devastating brutality of war.

The installation encompasses other early works by Grosz, including American Tourists in Berlin, and Man and Woman. Although less sinister in subject, both paintings reflect the artist’s acerbic perspective – as well as his superb technical skill. Grosz was much admired for his technique, employing glazes in a manner similar to that of the old masters. A much later painting, I, I was Always Present, painted in America, is a hallmark of Grosz’s work in the 1940s. The macabre, skeletal figure on horseback offers yet another biting commentary about the nightmares of another World War.