Celebrating the launch of Carl Grossberg:
New Forms in the World of Technology

We are delighted that this book is out in the world and that we were able to celebrate it with a festive launch at New York University’s charming Deutsches Haus last week! A brief description of the book follows, along with select images of the event (for more photos of the evening, see our instagram).

Carl Grossberg: New Forms in the World of Technology
Munich, Hirmer, 2025
Adrian Sudhalter
With essays by Mary E. Bauer, Joe Bucciero, Olaf Peters, and Melissa Venator

Long associated with the German Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity) movement of the 1920s, Carl Grossberg (1894–1940) is revered for his precise paintings of industry devoid of human figures but vibrant with color. His Traumbilder (Dream Pictures) envision industrial settings inhabited by unexpected creatures, such as monkeys, bats, and birds, which act to destabilize the certainty of such materialized rationalism. Focusing on the rich collection of paintings, drawings, and prints by Grossberg in the Merrill C. Berman Collection, this scholarly volume is the first to fully utilize the Grossberg Papers at the Harvard Art Museum Archives and takes an unprecedented object-based approach. Sudhalter’s overarching essay and the volume’s robust, fully-illustrated chronology highlight Grossberg’s Bauhaus training, his interrelated practices as a painter and interior designer, the reception of his work during his lifetime, and his relationship with the National Socialist regime after 1933.

To order in Europe: Hirmer
To pre-order in US: University of Chicago Press

Merrill Berman in front of New York University’s Deutsches Haus

Merrill Berman and Adrian Sudhalter

Adrian Sudhalter and Joe Bucciero in converstation

October 22, 2025