EXHIBITIONS

One hundred years ago, George Grosz created Eclipse of the Sun (1926), a masterpiece of antifascist political art and one of the most significant paintings in the Heckscher Museum’s collection. To amplify its enduring message, this museum-wide exhibition explores politically engaged art created over the last century. Selected from the collections of the Heckscher and the Art Bridges Foundation, Eclipse of the Sun Now features more than fifty works by leading artists of our time.

Eclipse of the Sun is a scathing critique of Germany’s Weimar regime. As signaled by the dollar sign darkening the sun, a symbol of life, the artwork critiques the greed and violence of the military, politicians, and industrialists. The tilted perspective, dissonant color, and ambiguous sense of space underscore the instability of the period following World War I. In the 1920s, Grosz was a leader of the outspoken Berlin Dada movement. Considered a “degenerate” artist by the Nazis, he fled to the United States in 1933 in advance of World War II. Grosz lived and worked in Huntington, New York, from 1947 until shortly before his death in 1959. In 1968, the Heckscher acquired Eclipse of the Sun thanks to a remarkable crowdfunding campaign that engaged hundreds of people, from students at Huntington High School to Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller.