(American/German, 1893-1959)

The Cop & The Anthem, circa 1933-1934, original illustration for the plate facing page 169 in The Voice of the City and Other Stories, signed lower right in black ink "Grosz", inscribed verso "36/1901", "235", "88P", watercolor, reed pen and pen and ink on P.M. Fabriano wove paper with watermark, 25-1/4 x 18-7/8 in.; gilt wood frame, 30-1/4 x 23-3/4 x 1-3/8 in.

Provenance: The studio of the artist, Bayside, Long Island, New York, 1934; Private Collection

Note: It was in 1934 that George Macy, publisher of the Limited Edition Club in New York, gave Grosz the assignment to illustrate O. Henry's selected short stories, published a year later under the title "The Voice of the City and Other Stories".

A homeless person in Madison Square Garden, sitting on a bench. His name is Soapy. It is winter time. This is, how O. Henry's story begins. „Soapy's mind became cognizant of the fact that time had come for him to resolve himself into a singular Committee of Ways and Means to provide against the coming rigor(...). Three months on the Island was what his soul craved. Three months of assured board and bed and congenial company...".

So Soapy thought of an easy way accomplishing his desire. He cheated a meal at a restaurant without paying. However, they let him go. In a cigar store, Soapy stole a silk umbrella from a customer, and when the owner claimed,My umbrella", Soapy sneered „Why don't you call a cop?". New York would not be New York without a policeman literally at every corner. However, when the policeman came, the umbrella man retreated by admitting, that he picked it up this morning in a restaurant and said if you recognize it as yours..." Moving back to his park bench at Madison Square, Soapy came to a standstill, as sweet music of the coming Sabbath anthem, coming out of an old church, transfixed him. He would change his life, find work, no more evil deeds, he would, he would....,,Soapy felt a hand laid on his arm. He looked quickly around into the broad face of a policeman. „What are you doin' here?" asked the officer, „Nothin'," said Soapy. „Then come along," said the policeman. „Three months on the Island,", said the Magistrate in the Police Court the next morning."

Grosz shows the moment Soapy is spellbound by the anthem, and a policeman approaching him. This watercolor, like the other watercolors and drawings Grosz did for O. Henry, shows, how thrilled the artist got by O. Henry's storytelling, and how brilliantly he executed them, opening an illustrative world of its own to the text.

It is remarkable, that Grosz started the work without any preliminary drawing, using only watercolor, working the watercolor wet into wet, with only few lines of reed pen and pen and ink for some contour and details.

-Robert Jentsch

Brunk Auctions would like to thank Ralph Jentsch for confirming the authenticity of this watercolor. It will be included in his forthcoming raisonne of the artist's works.