George Grosz's butcher-themed drawings at David Nolan Gallery

The David Nolan Gallery in Chelsea is currently featuring seven works by German artist George Grosz in a show titled The Way of All Flesh: Works on Paper from 1927-1931. As the title suggests, this exhibition focuses on the drawings and some of the watercolors that Grosz produced between the years 1927 through 1931, his last years in Berlin before moving to the United States. These works, in particular, revolve around the lives of local butchers and the brutal theme of animal slaughtering. The subject was one that stood out to Grosz as he lived through the scarce availability of food that effected Germany after the First World War.

The works in The Way of All Flesh are a metaphor for Germany’s brutalized society that lacks nourishments and depicts the butcher as the harbinger of death. Images such as the watercolor Fleisher (Butcher) portray the butcher as a villain with his arms crossed and a smug, triumphant expression on his face as he stands by his window, which reveals a slain pig.

Less grim illustrations such as Metzgershaufenster und Passanten, Berlin (Butcher’s Shop Window and Passerby, Berlin) depict two women walking down the street with one stopping to look in side a butcher shop, and the other one, a nun, turning her gaze toward the window sympathetically at the several pounds of meat suspended. At the David Nolan Gallery (527 W. 29th St.) through March 3. The gallery is open from Tuesdays through Fridays from 10 a.m. until 6 p.m.; Saturdays from 11 a.m. until 6 p.m. and Mondays by appointment.