George Grosz was born in Berlin, Germany on 26 July 1893 and trained at the Dresden Academy and later at the school of the Museum of Decorative Arts in Berlin. He was also greatly influenced by graphic artists including William Hogarth and Honoré Daumier and by popular art forms including graffiti. From 1916 he began to paint in oils and his lithographs featured regularly in books and magazines. He served twice during the First World War (the first time as a volunteer) and was twice discharged for medical reasons. This experience sharpened his political conscience resulting in a series of bitingly satirical works that were particularly critical of militarism, corruption and hypocrisy. A prominent member of the Dada movement, he also became the leading exponent of the Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity) movement and established an international reputation that led to an invitation to teach in New York. He fled Germany in 1933, only days before Hitler’s accession to power in order to escape prosecution. In 1937 Grosz’s work was included, in his absence, in the infamous ‘Degenerate Art’ exhibition that opened in Munich before touring throughout Germany and Austria. He became a naturalised American citizen in 1938 and published his autobiography, 'A Little Yes and a Big No' in New York in 1946, but, disillusioned with the ‘American Dream’, he returned to postwar Berlin in 1959 and died shortly afterwards on 6 July 1959. His work is represented in many international museum collections.