Object Notes

 

The neon lights of Dallas's Theater Row led northeast along Elm Street to Deep Ellum (or Deep Elm), the primary business and entertainment district of African American Dallas. These two adjacent stretches of Elm Street were separated by an invisible barrier of segregation, but one that remained permeable.

This ambitious work began as a single canvas and expanded to ten over the course of its creation.

The gilt wooden statue of Amida, the Buddha of Light who welcomed souls to the Western Paradise, or Pure Land, reflects the gentle, consoling character of Buddhism that developed during the Fujiwara period.

This vantage chosen by Grosz was somewhat atypical for postcard views of the city, but it allowed him a clear view of the skyscrapers that dominated the skyline of Dallas, most prominently the Mercantile Building, the Magnolia Building, the Davis Building, and the Adolphus hotel, where Grosz stayed when he visited Dallas to make sketches for the series Impressions of Dall

This is one of the earliest of many probing self-portraits George Grosz made in the years after his arrival in the United States. During the same period, he also moved sharply away from his past identity as a political satirist and began instead to make allegories of war in response to the grim developments in Europe.

Dallas's incredible 20th-century growth was fueled by oil, which brought enormous wealth to the city in the midst of the Depression and financed the construction of the great skyscrapers that dominated the skyline, such as the Magnolia Petroleum Building.