In a sterile-looking room, an oversized yellow boiler sits in the middle of a complex industrial plant. What is striking is the sober and sharp gaze with which Grossberg has depicted the boiler. The painting was commissioned by Consul Brinckman for the Hamburg oil refinery, HOBUM.
His machine paintings, created between 1933 and 1934, are among his best-known works. As he said himself, he was particularly interested in depicting architectural and technical installations because they 'define the face of our time'. His paintings reflect the enthusiasm that prevailed in the Weimar Republic for the new possibilities offered by technical production systems and industrial work processes.
Created by human hands as an extension of human labour, the machine leads a parallel existence. It functions as a counterpart. Thus, the boiler in the painting also becomes an individual entity. Grossberg depicts it as a full-body portrait, a voluminous body connected to fine pipes and tubes that fill it with life. One suspects that fluid is circulating, but its specific function, and thus the meaning of its existence, remain a mystery.
The painting came to the museum from the collection of Kurt Herbert, a paint manufacturer from Wuppertal.
Further Media
- Location & Dating
- 1933
- Material & Technique
- Öl auf Leinwand auf Holz
- Dimensions
- 90 x 70 cm
- Museum
- Von der Heydt Museum
- Inventory number
- G 1559