Carl Grossberg (German, 1894–1940)
Grossberg studied architecture in Aachen and Darmstadt before being drafted into the First World War in 1914. After the war, he enrolled at the newly established Bauhaus in Weimar, where he studied with Lyonel Feininger until 1921. Coincident with the landmark Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity) exhibition and the publication of Franz Roh’s book Nach Expressionismus (After Expressionism), both of 1925, Grossberg turned to industry and technology as subject matter.
Beginning in the late 1920s, he received numerous commissions to render industrial projects from companies such as Berlin’s electric utility (BEWAG); while also establishing an interior design practice, where he worked with modern architects including Peter Feile and Erich Mendelsohn. In 1934, the year after the Nazis came to power, Grossberg was the subject of a monographic exhibition at Hanover’s progressive Kestner-Gesellschaft art association. The same year, he contributed a major wall mural on the subject of “industrial landscape” to the important Deutsches Volk—Deutsche Arbeit (German People—German Work) trade fair in Berlin.
Grossberg’s sharp, precise brand of realism was not antithetical to the aesthetics of the Nazi regime, and his work was not included in the notorious Entartete Kunst (Degenerate Art) exhibition of 1937. In 1938, Grossberg was drafted again. In 1940, he died in occupied France following a car accident.
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Our Grossberg holdings are among the deepest of any public or private collection in the United States or Germany. In 2017–2018, Harvard’s Busch-Reisinger Museum presented Carl Grossberg: Works from the Merrill C. Berman Collection, the first monographic presentation of the artist’s work in an American museum. This installation was accompanied by a catalogue by then curatorial fellow Melissa Venator. Adrian Sudhalter’s in-depth, scholarly volume Carl Grossberg: New Forms in the World of Technology (see cover image at left), published by Hirmer, will be appear in December 2025 and is available for pre-order now via The University of Chicago Press.
Click here for Sudhalter’s essay on Grossberg’s 1935 painting Stahlmöbel (Steel Furniture) in our online journal, Research, no. 3 (June 2024).
Drawings
Prints (Bewag, Berlin)
Paintings
Architecture
Industry
Dream Paintings
Deaccessioned Works
The works shown here represent only a selection from the collection. Please contact us for further inquiry.