ECCE HOMO - FIRST EDITION WITH 100 LITHOGRAPHIC PLATES BY GEORGE GROSZ

Ecce Homo is a highly important  portfolio of 84 lithographs and 16 colour reproductions printed by offset lithography. It was published in January of 1923, though many of the original drawings were completed some years before. The suite depicts a decrepit Berlin, its sole inhabitants the lecherous and begrimed, middle-aged, middle-class society whose grotesque lives spill wantonly from boudoirs and bar rooms into the city streets. Though Grosz’s images captured the seething corruption that had grown out of hyper-inflation and the political turmoil of the early 1920s, they were ill received by the authorities. Following their publication, Grosz was prosecuted for offending the sense of modesty and morality of the German public: 24 of the plates were confiscated; a great number of the original drawings were destroyed; Grosz and his associates were each fined, Grosz’s total penalties across the trial amounting to 6,000 marks. The attention Ecce Homo received from the establishment was in part due to its huge edition size: the series was published in 5 editions, with a total of 10,000 printings. Of these, the first two ‘deluxe’ editions and countless copies of the other three editions have almost entirely been lost to the public by book-burnings of the Nazis in 1933. Of the surviving copies, many have been broken up for the plates to be sold separately. These individual plates fetch substantial prices on the market. 

This copy is one of the Edition C containing all 84 drawings and 6 colour plates. The work was reprinted by the Grove Press in 1966, but it is generally accepted that the quality of the plates in the original edition is substantially better with much richer and more intense colours. In remarkably fresh condition in the original beige handmade limp illustrated boards. Apart from 2 plates (both illustrated in the supplied images) which each have a small 1cm. stain along the lower edges, all the the remaining illustrations are clean and about fine. No foxing whatsoever. There is a neat gift inscription dated 1946 at the top of the blank front free endpaper. 

Altogether a superior copy of this major work. Shipping only by courier and bidders outside of South Africa need be aware of increased shipping costs.