{
"data": {
"id": 142807,
"accession_number": "1966.50.a",
"share_license_status": "Copyrighted",
"tombstone": "Student (Costume Study for Goll's \"Methusalem\") (recto), 1922. George Grosz (German, 1893\u20131959). Pen and brown-black ink (applied with the aid of drafting tools) and watercolor; sheet: 52.7 x 38 cm (20 3/4 x 14 15/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Contemporary Collection of The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1966.50.a. \u00a9 Estate of George Grosz / Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY",
"current_location": null,
"title": "Student (Costume Study for Goll's \"Methusalem\") (recto)",
"creation_date": "1922",
"creation_date_earliest": 1922,
"creation_date_latest": 1922,
"artists_tags": [
"male"
],
"culture": [
"Germany, Berlin, 20th century"
],
"technique": "Pen and brown-black ink (applied with the aid of drafting tools) and watercolor",
"support_materials": [
{
"description": "cream wove paper (now discolored to light brown)",
"watermarks": []
}
],
"department": "Drawings",
"collection": "DR - German",
"type": "Drawing",
"measurements": "Sheet: 52.7 x 38 cm (20 3/4 x 14 15/16 in.)",
"dimensions": {
"sheet": {
"height": 0.527,
"height_inch": 20,
"height_inch_fraction": 0.75,
"width": 0.38,
"width_inch": 14,
"width_inch_fraction": 0.9375
}
},
"state_of_the_work": null,
"edition_of_the_work": null,
"copyright": "\u00a9 Estate of George Grosz / Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY",
"inscriptions": [
{
"inscription": "upper right, in graphite: 6; by artist upper left, in brown ink: Dort kann er knacken und klirren beim sprechen [sideways along edge]; by artist, upper left, near figure's shoulder, in brown ink: Dampf / beim sprechen / von Zeit zu Zeit / aufzischen; by artist, upper left, below previous inscription, in brown ink: Z\u00e4hne gleich / alten / Klaviertasten; by artist, lower right in brown ink: Kopf Maske/aufgeklappt / gro\u00dfes Talglicht mit / aufmontierte elektr. Birne /als Licht, von beleuchter; by artist, lower right, in brown ink: Student [underlined twice]; by artist, lower right, below previous inscription: F\u00fc\u00dfe Riesen/streichholz/schachteln; lower left, in graphite: 38; by artist, bottom right, in graphite: No [\"o\" underlined twice] 16) zu Goll \"Methusalem\"",
"inscription_translation": null,
"inscription_remark": null,
"sortorder": null
}
],
"exhibitions": {
"current": [
{
"id": 361640,
"title": "Dada Revisited",
"description": "Dada Revisited. Akron Art Museum (organizer).",
"opening_date": null
},
{
"id": 300917,
"title": "Golden Anniversary of Acquisitions",
"description": "Golden Anniversary of Acquisitions. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (September 10-October 16, 1966).",
"opening_date": "1966-09-10T04:00:00"
},
{
"id": 443875,
"title": "Tendencies of the Twenties",
"description": "Tendencies of the Twenties. Staatliche Museen Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin 19, Germany (August 14, 1977-October 16, 1978); St\u00e4del Museum, Franfurt am Main, Germany (November 10, 1977-January 8, 1978).",
"opening_date": "1977-08-14T04:00:00"
},
{
"id": 361641,
"title": "Dada and Surrealism Reviewed",
"description": "Dada and Surrealism Reviewed. Hayward Gallery, London, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (January 11-March 27, 1978).",
"opening_date": "1978-01-11T05:00:00"
},
{
"id": 443370,
"title": "Dada Revisited",
"description": "Dada Revisited. Akron Art Museum, Akron, OH (organizer) (June 30-September 15, 1978).",
"opening_date": "1978-06-30T04:00:00"
},
{
"id": 361642,
"title": "DADA: Berlin, Cologne, Hannover",
"description": "DADA: Berlin, Cologne, Hannover. The Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, Boston, MA (November 5, 1980-January 4, 1981); Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, TX (March 3-April 19, 1981).",
"opening_date": "1980-11-05T05:00:00"
},
{
"id": 304520,
"title": "Art and the Stage",
"description": "Art and the Stage. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (May 22-August 16, 1981).",
"opening_date": "1981-05-22T04:00:00"
},
{
"id": 361643,
"title": "Robots: History, Fantasy, & Reality",
"description": "Robots: History, Fantasy, & Reality. Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, Madison, WI (organizer) (December 1-January 19, 1985).",
"opening_date": "1985-12-01T05:00:00"
},
{
"id": 310264,
"title": "Cross Section: Graphic Art in Germany after the First World War",
"description": "Cross Section: Graphic Art in Germany after the First World War. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (October 10, 1989-January 7, 1990).",
"opening_date": "1989-10-10T04:00:00"
},
{
"id": 192019,
"title": "Master Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art",
"description": "Master Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (August 27-October 17, 2000); The Morgan Library & Museum, New York, NY (May 23-August 19, 2001); Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Houston, TX (October 14, 2001-January 6, 2002).",
"opening_date": "2000-08-27T00:00:00"
},
{
"id": 181802,
"title": "The Persistence of Geometry: Form, Content and Culture in the Collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art",
"description": "The Persistence of Geometry: Form, Content and Culture in the Collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland (MOCA), Cleveland, OH (June 9-August 20, 2006).",
"opening_date": "2006-06-09T00:00:00"
},
{
"id": 299699,
"title": "Graphic Discontent: German Expressionism on Paper",
"description": "Graphic Discontent: German Expressionism on Paper. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (January 14-May 27, 2018).",
"opening_date": "2018-01-14T05:00:00"
}
],
"legacy": [
{
"description": "George Grosz. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (January - February 1954).",
"opening_date": "1954-01-01T00:00:00"
}
]
},
"provenance": [],
"find_spot": null,
"related_works": [],
"former_accession_numbers": [],
"did_you_know": "George Grosz's interest in mechanization extended to his drawing practice: he used drafting tools, like a straight-edge and compass, to execute works such as this one.",
"early_education_description": null,
"artlens_description": null,
"description": "Student belongs to a series of drawings George Grosz made for Iwan Goll\u2019s 1921 play Methusalem: The Eternal Bourgeois. This satirical drama pitted a radical student against Methusalem, a bourgeois capitalist. Grosz\u2019s drawing shows the student\u2019s costume; the actor would have spoken from behind a full-size, mask-like shield made from various machine parts and other commonplace objects. The hinged metal head reveals the inner workings of a corrupt or incompetent mind. In Grosz\u2019s characterization, neither the radical student nor the bourgeois capitalist was more righteous than the other. Grosz was an outlier to Expressionism, rejecting the idea of the artist as mystical prophet in favor of the artist as an ordinary worker, an idea inspired by the socialist rhetoric of the day.",
"external_resources": {
"wikidata": [
"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q80042973"
],
"internet_archive": []
},
"citations": [
{
"citation": "Baur, John Ireland Howe. George Grosz. Exh. Cat. New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 1954.",
"page_number": "Mentioned: pp. 16-17, no. 36; Reproduced: p. 16",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Rubin, William S. Dada and Surrealist Art. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1968.",
"page_number": "Mentioned: p. 88; Reproduced: plate 76",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Tendenzen der Zwanziger Jahre. Exh. Cat. Berlin: Akademie der K\u00fcnste, 1977.",
"page_number": "Mentioned: p. 3, p. 261; Reproduced: p. 3, p. 51",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Ades, Dawn. Dada and Surrealism Reviewed. Exh. Cat. London: Hayward Gallery, 1978.",
"page_number": "Mentioned: p. 94",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Wohl, Helmut. DADA: Berlin, Cologne, Hannover. Exh. Cat. Boston: Institute of Contemporary Art, 1980.",
"page_number": "Mentioned and reproduced: p. 12, p. 26",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Breitman, Ellen. Art and the Stage. Exh. Cat. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1981.",
"page_number": "Mentioned and reproduced: p. 29, no. 14",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Myers, Trent. Robots: History, Fantasy, & Reality. Exh. Cat. Madison, WI: Madison Art Center, 1985.",
"page_number": "Mentioned and reproduced: p. 3, insert",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Cleveland Museum of Art, Diane DeGrazia, and Carter E. Foster. Master Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art in association with Rizzoli International Publications, New York, 2000.",
"page_number": "Mentioned: P. 246-47, 297; Reproduced: P. 247, cat. no. 104",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Sims, Lowery Stokes. The Persistence of Geometry: Form, Content, and Culture in the Collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2006.",
"page_number": "Mentioned and Reproduced: P. 65, no. 63",
"url": ""
}
],
"url": "https://clevelandart.org/art/1966.50.a",
"images": {},
"alternate_images": [],
"creditline": "Contemporary Collection of The Cleveland Museum of Art",
"image_credit": null,
"sketchfab_id": null,
"sketchfab_url": null,
"gallery_donor_text": null,
"athena_id": 142807,
"creators": [
{
"id": 12615,
"description": "George Grosz (German, 1893\u20131959)",
"extent": null,
"qualifier": null,
"role": "artist",
"biography": null,
"name_in_original_language": null,
"birth_year": "1893",
"death_year": "1959",
"use_in_caption": true,
"include_extent": false,
"weight": 1
}
],
"legal_status": "accessioned",
"accession_date": "1967-01-30T00:00:00",
"sortable_date": 1922,
"date_added_to_oa": null,
"date_text": "1922",
"collapse_artists": false,
"on_loan": false,
"recently_acquired": false,
"record_type": "part",
"conservation_statement": null,
"has_conservation_images": false,
"cover_accession_number": "1966.50",
"is_nazi_era_provenance": true,
"impression": null,
"alternate_titles": [
"Student (Study for Goll's Methusalem)"
],
"is_highlight": false,
"updated_at": "2026-07-04 11:16:29.511000"
}
}