Otto Dix

pseudonym: -

birth data

date of birth: 1891

place of birth: Untermhaus

death data

date of death: 1969

death: Singen

biography

Otto Dix was born on 2 December 1891 in Untermhaus that is now a district in Gera. While a student at the Kunstgewerbeschule (Academy of Fine Arts) in Dresden he greatly admired the thin glazes of oil paint found in early Italian and Old German paintings during his regular visits to the citys Gemäldegalerie (Art Gallery). He was also influenced by van Gogh after seeing works by him at an exhibition in Dresden in 1912 and by the emerging German Expressionist movement and Italian Futurism.

His artistic training was interrupted by World War I when he volunteerd as a reservist and served, without interruption, on the forwardmost front from August 1914 onwards. After the war Dix returned to Dresden and was one of the founding members of the Dresden Secession - Group 1919. His closest friends included the painter Conrad Felixmüller who taught him the technique of etching. In 1920 he met the Berlin artists George Grosz and John Heartfield. That same year Dix took part at the First International Dada Fair in Berlin and, a few years later, became a member of the Berlin Secession.

In October 1921 he travelled to Düsseldorf for the first time where he met the art dealers Johanna Ey (Mother Ey) and Karl Nierendorf as well as the doctor Hans Koch and his wife Martha, whom Dix accompanied to Dresden on his return journey. In autumn 1922 Dix moved to Düsseldorf. He became a pro forma master pupil at the art academy under Heinrich Nauen and Wilhelm Herberholz who taught him the aquatint technique. In 1923 he started working on plates for his cycle of etchings The War, that ultimately comprised 50 sheets and is considered the highlight of his graphic ouvre. Its addresses how much-wanted social change failed to come about as a result of a harrowing and senseless war. Many of Dixs paintings from this period deal with criminality or hunger and present a merciless, realistic picture of the dark side of life. The artist consciously decided against artistic devices used by the Expressionists and developed a true-to-reality pictorial formula of aggressive astringency, termed Verism by the contemporary critic, Paul Westheim, or categorised under New Objectivity by G.F. Hartlaub. From 1924 onwards Dix addressed earlier influences, working in the manner of the Old Masters with thin glazes of oil paint in his works on panel. Using this technique he created one of his major works in 1927/28, the triptych Metropolis - a genre picture of the social structure of the Weimar Republic with exaggeratedly caricature-like figures in brilliant colours, additionally elevated in status through the use of the religious pictorial format of the triptych. In 1933, at the instigation of the National Socialists, Dix was forced to resign from his post as professor at the academy in Dresden that he had attained six years previously and had to face fierce hostility. His triptych The War, in particular, that he had completed in 1932 as a reflection of his wartime experiences, stirred resentment and led to Dix being accused of sabotage against the armed forces. In 1937 several works by Dix were shown at the Degenerate Art exhibition in Munich. For Otto Dix, defamation marked a dramatic turning-point in his life. The artist subsequently became more and more withdrawn and lived in Hemmenhofen on Lake Constance, punctuated by study trips to the South of France and Italy. From 1934 onwards, during his period of inner emigration, Dix turned primarily to the subject of the landscape, drawing on Old German painting. After World War II, expressive works of vibrant colour emerged once more, focussing on allegorical and Christian subjects as well as children and animals, landscapes and still lifes in both his paintings and in his graphic work.

Otto Dix died on 25 July 1969 in Singen near Lake Constance.