HUNTINGTON, NY.- One hundred years after it was created, Eclipse of the Sun, the iconic 1926 painting by George Grosz, remains as politically and artistically powerful today as when Grosz painted it as a scathing critique of the Weimar Republic of Germany. Bristling with impactful symbolism and allegory, the masterpiece anchors a distinctive exhibition at The Heckscher Museum of Art where it stands as one of the most significant paintings in any public collection on Long Island.
Eclipse of the Sun Now, September 26–May 9, 2027, explores consequential works of politically engaged art created over the last century. Selected from the collections of The Heckscher Museum and Art Bridges Foundation, the exhibition features more than 50 works by leading artists of our time, including Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Kerry James Marshall, Nam June Paik, Howardena Pindell, Cindy Sherman, Mickalene Thomas, and many more.
"This exhibition marks the 100th year of our painting and celebrates the vital conversations it still inspires. We are proud to honor George Grosz's legacy as a groundbreaking artist and activist." said Heather Arnet, Executive Director and CEO, The Heckscher Museum.
As a masterpiece of antifascist political art, Eclipse of the Sun confronts the greed and violence of the military, politicians, and industrialists during Germany’s Weimar regime. The tilted perspective, dissonant color, and ambiguous sense of space underscore the instability of the period following World War I. In the 1920s, Grosz was a leader of the outspoken Berlin Dada movement. Considered a “degenerate” artist by the Nazis, he fled to the United States in 1933 in advance of World War II. Grosz eventually lived and worked in Huntington, NY, and frequented The Heckscher from 1947 until shortly before his death in 1959. Grosz continued to create highly political art while living in Huntington, and two of his works, in addition to Eclipse of the Sun, 1958’s Moveable Feast and Executioner, will be included in the exhibition.
Eclipse of the Sun Now addresses interrelated themes including war, immigration, civil rights, mass media, and the environment. The sections—Art Survives, Liberation, Media Manipulations and Life Source—take their titles from artist statements in the exhibition. As an example, Elizabeth Catlett declared: “We have to create art for liberation and for life.” Eclipse of the Sun Now celebrates the power of art—to offer solace, to foster resistance, and to channel hope.
“This exhibition looks at Grosz’s art in a new light. Some of the featured artists, including Jack Levine, Romare Bearden, Sue Coe, and May Stevens, were directly inspired by Grosz, while other connections are more conceptual, as in the gallery dedicated to the intersection of art, politics and ecology,” said Dr. Karli Wurzelbacher, Chief Curator, The Heckscher Museum.
Exhibition highlights:
Rufino Tamayo, Perro aullando a la luna (Dog Howling at the Moon), 1942, oil on canvas, Art Bridges
Tamayo_Print (1)Against a cobalt sky, a lone dog raises its head and howls. The distended veins and contracted muscles of its blood-red body emphasize its desperate, anguished cry. Created in 1942 by Rufino Tamayo, Perro aullando a la luna typifies a stage in Tamayo’s production related to the strife of World War II. During this time, the serenity of the artist’s previous paintings was supplanted by a chromatic intensity and formal tension. The artist studied Picasso’s monumental anti-war painting Guernica (1937), and the anxiety of Tamayo’s dog recalls Picasso’s screaming horse. Tamayo, however, merges modern European influences with Indigenous inspiration; his tormented dog’s form also relates to the funerary canine statuettes of pre-Columbian Colima. Perro aullando a la luna not only expresses a sense of social consciousness during a time of war, but it also declares the artist’s investment in applying the tenets of European modernism to an exploration of Mexico’s visual heritage.
Elizabeth Catlett, Homage to My Young Black Sister, 1968, red cedar, Art Bridges
Elizabeth Catlett created this sculpture in Mexico, where she moved in 1946 to make prints at the People’s Graphic Arts Workshop, a collective that promoted social justice. In 1962, the US declared her an “undesirable alien” because of her political activism. Barred from returning to America, she created Homage to My Young Black Sisters to express her solidarity with the Civil Rights and Feminist movements from afar. She said, “I have always wanted my art… to reflect us, to relate to us, to stimulate us, to make us aware of our potential. We have to create art for liberation and for life.”
Cindy Sherman, Untitled Film Still #2 and Untitled Film Still #13, 1979, Gelatin silver prints, Art Bridges
cindy shermanRaised in Huntington, NY, Cindy Sherman studied art at SUNY Buffalo from 1972 to 1976, during the rise of the Women’s Movement. She created her renowned Untitled Film Stills series (1977–1980) amid Second Wave feminism’s critique of the representation of women in mass media. In these images, she disguises herself as female archetypes drawn from 1950s and ‘60s film and advertising. By performing these familiar roles, Sherman reveals the constructed nature of femininity and the media’s influence, prompting viewers to question their own assumptions about identity, gender, and authenticity.
Sheida Soleimani, Deltang, 2024, archival pigment print, The Heckscher Museum of Art
In her most recent photographic series, Sheida Soleimani excavates her parents’ personal history as pro-democracy activists forced to flee Iran after the 1979 revolution. She reconstructs their lives through fragmentary memories, archival imagery, and symbolic objects. Part documentation, part invention, these composite images create a new space where personal and political histories coincide. Deltang is a rare work that pictures her mother’s face. Partially visible in a car’s detached side mirror, Soleimani’s “mmn” appears in a lush landscape, protected from the scorpions patrolling the coarse pink sand. Translated literally as “tight” or “narrow hearted,” deltang (گنتلد) is the Farsi word for the pain of separation, or homesickness.
