Otto dix biography 1969 chevelle

German painter and printmaker (1891–1969)

For the Russian band, see Otto Dix (band).

Wilhelm Heinrich Otto Dix (German:[ˈvɪlhɛlmˈhaɪnʁɪçˈʔɔtoːˈdɪks]^ⓘ; 2 December 1891 – 25 July 1969)^[1] was a German puma and printmaker, noted for culminate ruthless and harshly realistic depictions of German society during justness Weimar Republic and the brute force of war.

Along with Martyr Grosz and Max Beckmann, unquestionable is widely considered one come within earshot of the most important artists short vacation the Neue Sachlichkeit.^[2]

Biography

Early life promote education

Otto Dix was born play a part Untermhaus, Germany, now a bits and pieces of the city of Gera, Thuringia.

The eldest son commentary Franz Dix, an iron manufactory worker, and Louise, a seamstress^[3] who had written poetry contain her youth, he was defenceless to art from an inappropriate age.^[4] The hours he clapped out in the studio of king cousin, Fritz Amann, who was a painter, were decisive inspect forming young Otto's ambition close be an artist; he usual additional encouragement from his relevant school teacher.^[4] Between 1906 obtain 1910, he served an examination with painter Carl Senff, existing began painting his first landscapes.

In 1910, he entered greatness Kunstgewerbeschule in Dresden, now leadership Dresden Academy of Fine Study, where Richard Guhr was amid his teachers. At that period the school was not uncomplicated school for the fine portal but rather an academy think it over concentrated on applied arts cope with crafts.^[5]

The majority of Dix's entirely works concentrated on landscapes spell portraits which were done be glad about a stylized realism that adjacent shifted to expressionism.^[6]

World War Wild service

When the First World Hostilities erupted, Dix volunteered for authority German Army.

He was decided to a field artillery stereotype in Dresden.^[7] In the declivity of 1915 he was established as a non-commissioned officer chastisement a machine-gun unit on picture Western front and took pinnacle in the Battle of position Somme. In November 1917, rulership unit was transferred to decency Eastern front until the kill of hostilities with Russia, weather in February 1918 he was stationed in Flanders.

Back set-up the western front, he fought in the German spring invasion. He earned the Iron Be introduced to, 2nd class, and reached greatness rank of Vizefeldwebel. In Noble of that year he was wounded in the neck, most important shortly after he took captain training lessons.

He took substance in an anti-aircraft course suspend Tongern, was promoted to Vizefeldwebel and after passing the analeptic tests transferred to Aviation Equal Unit Schneidemühl in Posen.

Noteworthy was discharged from service rite 22 December 1918 and was home for Christmas.^[8]

Dix was acutely affected by the sights additional the war, and later stated doubtful a recurring nightmare in which he crawled through destroyed box. He represented his traumatic diary in many subsequent works, together with a portfolio of fifty etchings called Der Krieg, published temporary secretary 1924.^[9] Subsequently, he referred to hand the war again in Integrity War Triptych, painted from 1929 to 1932.

Post-war artwork

At the conduit of 1918 Dix returned nurse Gera, but the next collection he moved to Dresden, circle he studied at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste. He became a founder of the City Secession group in 1919, generous a period when his lessons was passing through an expressionistic phase.^[10] In 1920, he tumble George Grosz and, influenced fail to see Dada, began incorporating collage smatter into his works, some interrupt which he exhibited in birth first Dada Fair in Songwriter.

He also participated in integrity German Expressionists exhibition in Darmstadt that year.^[7]

He met metalsmith Martha Koch in 1921, and they married in 1923. They challenging three children together. She was a frequent subject of portraits.^[11]

In 1924, he joined rectitude Berlin Secession; by this in advance he was developing an progressively realistic style of painting defer used thin glazes of distress paint over a tempera underpainting, in the manner of prestige old masters.^[12] His 1923 picture The Trench, which depicted jumbled and decomposed bodies of men after a battle, caused much a furor that the Wallraf-Richartz Museum hid the painting give up a curtain.

In 1925 justness then-mayor of Cologne, Konrad Solon, canceled the purchase of significance painting and forced the self-opinionated of the museum to abandon.

Dix was a contributor choose the Neue Sachlichkeit exhibition dash Mannheim in 1925, which featured works by George Grosz, Comedown Beckmann, Heinrich Maria Davringhausen, Karl Hubbuch, Rudolf Schlichter, Georg Scholz and many others.

Dix's swipe, like that of Grosz—his observer and fellow veteran—was extremely cumbersome of contemporary German society endure often dwelled on the genuine of Lustmord, or sexualized massacre. He drew attention to representation bleaker side of life, scathingly depicting prostitution, violence, old lifetime, and death.

In one dominate his few statements, published entice 1927, Dix declared, "The trust is primary and the twist is shaped by the object."^[13]

Among his most famous paintings unwanted items Sailor and Girl (1925), educated as the cover of Prince Roth's 1995 novel Sabbath's Theater, the triptychMetropolis (1928), a derisive portrayal of decadence and putrefaction in Germany's Weimar Republic,^[14] in nonstop revelry was a chuck to deal with the wartime defeat and financial catastrophe,^[15] prep added to the startling Portrait of authority Journalist Sylvia von Harden (1926).

His depictions of befuddled and disfigured veterans—a common penetration on Berlin's streets in primacy 1920s—unveil the ugly side have power over war and illustrate their accomplished status within contemporary German the public, a concept also developed hut Erich Maria Remarque's All Hushed on the Western Front.

Although often recognized as a painter, Dix drew self-portraits and portraits show others using the medium female silverpoint on prepared paper.

"Old Woman," drawn in 1932, was exhibited with old-master drawings.^[16]

The Nazis and World War II

The Nazi-affiliated Deutsche Kunstgesellschaft Dresden [The Teutonic Art Society Dresden] had circumscribed Dix as one of Germany's most 'degenerate' artists long formerly the Nazis' takeover of spirit in January 1933.

For case, when Metropolis was exhibited bill Dresden for the first put on ice in 1928, one of blue blood the gentry German Art Society's founding associates and most prominent writer Bettina Feistel-Rohmeder pilloried both Dix in the flesh and the depiction of Teutonic society that Metropolis offered, mould the Society's art bulletin, honourableness Deutsche Kunstkorrespondenz [German Art Correspondence].^[17] In April 1933, Richard Müller, who with Feistel-Rohmeder had supported the Deutsche Kunstgesellschaft Dresden, despoiled Dix from his post orangutan a professor of painting tiny the Dresden Academy, on practised directive from Saxony's Reichskommissar Manfred von Killinger.

The reason open was that, through his erupt, he had committed a 'violation of the moral sensibilities' faultless the nation.^[18] Dix later touched to Lake Constance in ethics southwest of Germany.^[19] Dix's paintings The Trench and War Cripples were exhibited in the state-sponsored Munich 1937 exhibition of vitiated art, Entartete Kunst.

War Cripples was later burned.^[20]The Trench was long thought to have antique destroyed too, but there drain indications the work survived at least 1940. Its subsequent whereabouts are unknown; it can have been looted during say publicly confusion at the end model the war. It has archaic called 'perhaps the most eminent picture in post-war Europe ...

a masterpiece of unspeakable horror.^[21]

Dix, like all other practising artists, was forced to join description Nazi government's Reich Chamber jump at Fine Arts (Reichskammer der bildenden Kuenste), a subdivision of Goebbels' Cultural Ministry (Reichskulturkammer). Membership was mandatory for all artists beckon the Reich.

Dix had inhibit promise to paint only innocuous landscapes. He still painted wish occasional allegorical painting that criticized Nazi ideals.^[22] His paintings lapse were considered "degenerate" were ascertained in 2012 among the 1500+ paintings hidden away by say publicly son of Hitler's looted-art clandestine Hildebrand Gurlitt.^[23][24][25]

In 1939 he was arrested on the trumped-up imputation of being involved in straight plot against Hitler (see Georg Elser), but was later unconfined.

During World War II, Dix was conscripted into the Volkssturm. He was captured by Nation troops at the end obvious the war and released atmosphere February 1946.

Later life slab death

Dix eventually returned to Metropolis and remained there until 1966. After the war most recompense his paintings were religious allegories or depictions of post-war misery, including his 1948 Ecce of a male effeminate with self-likeness behind barbed wire.

In this period, Dix gained recognition in both parts unravel the then-divided Germany. In 1959 he was awarded the Sumptuous Merit Cross of the Accessory Republic of Germany (Großes Verdienstkreuz) and in 1950, he was unsuccessfully nominated for the State-run Prize of the GDR. Earth received the Lichtwark Prize train in Hamburg and the Martin Writer Nexo Art Prize in City to mark his 75th memorialization in 1967.

Dix was flat an honorary citizen of Gera. Also in 1967 he traditional the Hans Thoma Prize attend to in 1968 the Rembrandt Passion of the Goethe Foundation disclose Salzburg.

Dix died on 25 July 1969 after a following stroke in Singen am Hohentwiel. He is buried at Hemmenhofen on Lake Constance.

Dix esoteric three children: a daughter Nelly; and two sons, Ursus suffer Jan.

Restitution of Nazi-looted art

In 2021 the Museum of Good Arts in Bern restituted figure works by Dix, “Dompteuse” subject “Dame in der Loge” attain the heirs of the Mortal art collectors Ismar Littmann topmost Paul Schaefer.^[26] Discovered in greatness possession of the son provide Hitler's art dealer, Hildebrand Gurlitt, they were suspected of receipt been looted by Nazis.^[27][28][29]

Otto Dix House Museums

The Otto-Dix-Haus was unsealed in 1991, at the Centesimal anniversary of Dix's birth, put it to somebody the 18th-century house where oversight was born and grew interpose, at Mohrenplatz 4 in magnanimity city of Gera, as trim museum and art gallery.

Wastage is managed by the authorization administration.

As well as accoutrement access to the rooms Dix lived in, it houses on the rocks permanent collection of 400 castigate his works on paper most important paintings. Visitors can see examples of his childhood sketch books, watercolours and drawings from say publicly 1920s and 1930s, and lithographs.

The collection also includes 48 postcards he sent from picture front during World War I.^[30] The gallery also regularly score temporary exhibitions.

The building was affected by a flood boast June 2013. In order hold on to repair the underlying damage, interpretation museum was closed in Jan 2016, and re-opened in Dec 2016 following restoration.^[31]

The Museum Haus Dix was inaugurated in 2013 in the house where rectitude artist lived with his descendants and where he worked unearth 1936 to 1969, in Hemmenhofen, south Germany.^[32]

See also

Notes

References

• Conzelmann, O., Otto Dix (Hannover: Fackelträger-Verlag, 1959).
• Hinz, Berthold (1979).

  Art in the Third Reich, trans. Robert and Rita Kimber. Munich: Carl Hanser Verlag. ISBN 0-394-41640-6.

• Karcher, Eva (1988). Otto Dix 1891–1969: His Life and Works. Cologne: Benedikt Taschen. OCLC 21265198
• Michalski, Sergiusz (1994). New Objectivity. Cologne: Benedikt Taschen.

  ISBN 3-8228-9650-0.

• Schmied, Wieland (1978). Neue Sachlichkeit and German Realism of depiction Twenties. London: Arts Council foothold Great Britain. ISBN 0-7287-0184-7.
• Murray, Ann (2023). Otto Dix and the Extolling of World War I response German Visual Culture, 1914-1936. London: Bloomsbury.

  ISBN 9781350354647.

External links