[3][better source needed] In The Love Sick, one of his first oil paintings, Grosz not only depicts his own autobiographical and socio-political situation, but also draws inspiration from several artistic movements of his time.

With plunging perspectives, distortion of proportions and caricatural exaggerations of physiognomy, he follows the German Expressionism style, similarly to Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and Erich Heckel.

Grosz also refers to cubism depicting a typical pedestal table, and a still life with glass, bottle and pipe, usually portrayed in many of the works of Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque and Juan Gris.

(...) He was sitting there, powdery white with red lips in a chocolate brown suit, between his knees a slender black cane."

Grosz reprised his roles in The Love Sick self-portrait, most notably that of Count Ehrenfried, a nonchalant aristocrat with clean nails.