Today at the Museum


Flower of the Prairie: George Grosz in Dallas

May 20–August 19, 2012
Chilton Gallery II

In 1952 George Grosz, the expatriate German dadaist and satirist, was invited to Dallas by Leon Harris, Jr., the young vice president of the Harris and Company department store. Harris had commissioned Grosz to create a series of paintings illustrating the landscape, economy, and society of Dallas for the store’s 65th anniversary celebrations. Grosz’s series, called Impressions of Dallas, was exhibited at the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts in Fair Park in October 1952 and then in New York in 1954, but have since remained almost forgotten.

In 2012 on the 60th anniversary of the series’ first presentation at the DMFA, the Dallas Museum of Art will present Flower of the Prairie: George Grosz in Dallas. The exhibition will feature twenty works from the series, accompanied by a rich selection of historic photographs of Dallas, documenting the city as Grosz discovered it in 1952. The exhibition will also examine the context for the Impressions of Dallas series with twelve of Grosz’s works made earlier in his career, including graphic work and watercolors made in Berlin in the 1920s and early 1930s, and paintings and watercolors made in New York during the late 1930s and 1940s.

The exhibition will be accompanied by the Dallas Museum of Art's first e-catalogue, an electronic publication describing the history of Grosz’s Dallas paintings. The catalogue, featuring an essay by exhibition curator Heather MacDonald and additional contributions by Andrew Sears, will describe Grosz’s career in the postwar years, relate the history of the Impressions of Dallas commission, and offer a rich portrait of Dallas in the early 1950s. The catalogue will reproduce the Impressions of Dallas series in its entirety for the first time, and will also illustrate many other paintings, watercolors, drawings, and prints by Grosz, as well as many historic photographs of Dallas.
 
Flower of the Prairie: George Grosz in Dallas
is organized by the Dallas Museum of Art and curated by Heather MacDonald, The Lillian and James H. Clark Associate Curator of European Art.

The exhibition is presented by

Air transportation is provided by American Airlines.


Related Programming:

Summer Film Series: Beginning Thursday, July 12, 2012

Gallery Talk: Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Late Night: Friday, July 20, 2012

Special Events with Marty Grosz, son of George Grosz: Wednesday, August 1 and Thursday, August 2, 2012

Press:
Associated Press

“Exhibit shows Grosz's take on Dallas in '52”

May 18, 2012

Arts+Culture

“Review: George Grosz in Dallas”

June 4, 2012

Image:

George Grosz, Dallas Broadway, 1952, watercolor on paper, Dallas Museum of Art, Foundation for the Arts Collection, anonymous gift in memory of Leon A. Harris

The Flower of the Prairie:
George Grosz in Dallas

e-catalogue is now available:

Download the free
iPad app, available
now from iTunes

Order the print-on-
demand catalogue,
available now at Blurb