Otto Dix: Subversive Critic

Otto Dix was an expressionist German painter and printmaker.
Born in Unterhaus in 1891, Otto Dix lived through Germany’s turbulent times of the early twentieth century and depicted the reality of these times in his work. After working as an apprentice to a decorative house painter in his hometown, he entered Dresden's School of Applied Arts in 1910. His early work was in a colorful expressionistic style. He was influenced by of paintings by Vincent van Gogh, Paul Gauguin, Edvard Munch, and The Bridge painters, a group of Dresden artists.

Otto’s work depicts the horrors of war and the characters in his paintings are usually victims or marginalized in society in some way. The experience of being a soldier in World War I from 1915 to 1918 in the German Army greatly informed Dix’s work. Dix's wartime experiences, along with his viewpoint of the economic and political ramifications in Germany that followed the war, depicted in a realist style that is evident in all his work.

Following World War I, Dix became associates with fellow artists George Grosz, and Max Beckmann. In 1919 he cofounded the Dresden Secession of Radical Artists. In 1920, Otto was in an exhibition of Dadaist works in Berlin. In 1925 Dix became a leader in the ‘Neue Sachlichkeit’ (New Objectivity), which was dedicated to realistic paintings that depicted the corrupt nature of twentieth century capitalist society.

In the 1920s and 1930s Dix's work focused on themes of war and the social and economic upheaval in Germany that followed World War I. The brutality of trench warfare was depicted in the three-panel painting War (1928-1932, Gemdldegalerie, Dresden, Germany). In 1924 Dix painted a series of 50 etchings, also titled War. The etchings pay homage to Goya's series Disasters of War (1810). Dix also painted lively scenes of street life, such as the three-panel painting Metropolis (1927-1928, Galerie der Stadt, Stuttgart), which shows the party scene in a jazz club contrasted with scenes of war, disabled war veterans and prostitutes.

After World War I was over, Dix studied painting at Dresden's Academy of Art from 1919 to 1922. However his work was always too critical of society and the government. In 1934 the German Nazi government featured Dix's work prominently in a demonstration exhibitions of what Nazis claimed were "degenerate art." Dix was banned from teaching and exhibiting his art work. He was drafted back into the army in 1945. After the Second World War was over, Otto returned to Singen, Germany. He painted until his death in 1969. The Nazi regime destroyed many of his works, but many were hidden and saved by art lovers and are still in museums today. Currently, there is an exhibition of Dix’s work in Montreal at the Musee de Beaux Arts.

By Melissa Montgomery