Grundig, Hans

Born Feb. 19, 1901, in Dresden; died there Sept. 11, 1958. German painter and graphic artist.

Grundig studied at the Academy of Art in Dresden (1922–26). He was influenced by expressionism and O. Dix. He joined the German Communist Party in 1926 and was one of the founders of the Association of Revolutionary Artists of Germany in Dresden (1929). During the Nazi regime he was prohibited from creating and exhibiting his works; he was arrested in 1936 and 1938 and incarcerated in the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp from 1939 to 1944. In 1946–47 he was a professor and rector of the Higher School of Fine Art in Dresden. Grundig’s passionate, politically committed art is devoted to the revolutionary struggle of the German proletariat (Meeting of the Communist Party Cell, 1932, National Gallery, Berlin). He rises to great heights of tragic fervor in exposing fascist crimes; the ominous images of fascist domination sometimes acquire the character of fantastic symbols (the etchings Beasts and Men, 1933–38; the triptych The Thousand-Year Reich, 1935–38, and To the Victims of Fascism, 1946–49, in the Dresden Art Gallery). Grundig received the National Prize of the German Democratic Republic (1958, awarded posthumously).