This George Grosz portrait displays all the hallmarks of New Objectivity, a tendency during the 1920s in Germany characterized by critical and careful attention to detail that depicts subjects in a hyperrealistic, if unidealized, manner. Grosz was friendly with the subject of this portrait, Felix Weil, whom the artist nicknamed “Lix.” Born in Argentina and educated in Germany, Weil was committed to Marxist theory and was one of the founders and funders of the Institute for Social Research, also known as the Frankfurt School. Like a number of Jewish leftist intellectuals, Weil fled Germany after the Nazis came to power, moving from Argentina to New York and, finally, to the Pacific Palisades area of Los Angeles, dubbed “Weimar on the Pacific” for the number of German expatriates who settled there. Weil kept this painting in his collection until his death in 1975.

Wall label, 2021.