Otto Dix (December 2, 1891 - July 25, 1969) was a German painter and printmaker. Noted for his ruthless depictions of Weimar society and of the brutality of war, he is one of the most important artists of the Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity). December 2 is the 336th day (337th in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1891 (MDCCCXCI) was a common year starting on Thursday (see link for calendar). ... July 25 is the 206th day (207th in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian calendar, with 159 days remaining. ... 1969 (MCMLXIX) was a common year starting on Wednesday (the link is to a full 1969 calendar). ... Anthem: Das Lied der Deutschen The Länder of Germany during the Weimar Republic, with the Free State of Prussia (Freistaat Preußen) as the largest Capital Berlin Language(s) German Government Republic President  - 1919-1925 Friedrich Ebert  - 1925-1933 Paul von Hindenburg Chancellor  - 1919 Philipp Scheidemann  - 1933 Adolf Hitler... The New Objectivity, or neue Sachlichkeit (new matter-of-factness), was an art movement which arose in Germany during the 1920s as an outgrowth of, and in opposition to, expressionism. ...

Otto Dix was born in Untermhaus, Germany, now a part of the city of Gera. The eldest son of an iron foundry worker, he was exposed to art from an early age; his mother had written poetry in her youth, and he had a cousin who was a painter.^[1] In 1910, he entered the Dresden School of Arts and Crafts and supported himself as a portrait painter.^{[citation needed]} Gera is the largest Town in the east of Thuringia, Germany. ... 1910 (MCMX) was a common year starting on Saturday (see link for calendar) of the Gregorian calendar or a common year starting on Sunday of the 13-day slower Julian calendar. ... Self-portrait by Vincent Van Gogh A portrait is a painting, photograph, or other artistic representation of a person. ...

When the First World War erupted, Dix enthusiastically volunteered for the German Army. He was taken to a field artillery regiment in Dresden. In the fall of 1915 he was assigned as a non-commissioned officer of a machine-gun unit in the Western front and took part of the Battle of the Somme. He was seriously wounded several times. In 1917, his unit was transferred to the Eastern front until the end of hostilities with Russia. Back in the western front, he fought in the German Spring offensive. He earned the Iron Cross and reached the rank of vice-sergeant-major. Combatants Allied Powers: British Empire France Italy Russia United States Central Powers: Austria-Hungary Bulgaria Germany Ottoman Empire Commanders Ferdinand Foch Georges Clemenceau Joseph Joffre Victor Emmanuel III Luigi Cadorna Armando Diaz Nicholas II Aleksei Brusilov Herbert Henry Asquith Douglas Haig John Jellicoe Woodrow Wilson John Pershing Wilhelm II Paul... This article describes U.S. field artillery. ... Dresden (Sorbian: Drježdźany; etymologically from Old Sorbian Drežďany, meaning people of the riverside forest) is the capital city of the German Federal Free State of Saxony. ... 1915 (MCMXV) was a common year starting on Friday (see link for calendar). ... A non-commissioned officer (sometimes noncommissioned officer), also known as an NCO or noncom, is a non-commissioned member of an armed force who has been given authority by a commissioned officer. ... Combatants British Empire Australia Canada New Zealand Newfoundland South Africa United Kingdom France German Empire Commanders Douglas Haig Joseph Joffre Max von Gallwitz Fritz von Below Strength 13 British & 11 French divisions (initial) 51 British and 48 French divisions (final) 10. ... 1917 (MCMXVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar (see link for calendar) or a common year starting on Tuesday of the 13-day slower Julian calendar. ... The 1918 Spring Offensive or Kaiserschlacht was a series of German attacks along the Western Front during the First World War, which marked the deepest advance by either side since 1914. ... A stylized version of the Iron Cross, the emblem of the Bundeswehr, Germanys Armed Forces. ...

Dix was profoundly affected by the sights of the war, and would later describe a recurring nightmare in which he crawled through destroyed houses. He represented his traumatic experiences in many subsequent works, including a portfolio of fifty etchings called War, published in 1924. In common current usage, the term nightmare refers to dreams of particular intensity, with content that the sleeper finds disturbing, related either to physiological causes, such as a high fever, or to psychological ones, such as unusual trauma or stress in the sleepers life. ... Etching is an intaglio method of printmaking in which the image is incised into the surface of a metal plate using an acid. ...

At the end of 1918 Dix returned to Gera, but the next year he moved to Dresden, where he studied at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste. He became a founder of the Dresden Secession group in 1919, during a period when his work was passing through an expressionist phase. In 1920 he met George Grosz and, influenced by Dada, began incorporating collage elements into his works, some of which he exhibited in the first Dada Fair in Berlin. He also participated in the German Expressionists exhibition in Darmstadt that year.^[2] Dresden (Sorbian: Drježdźany; etymologically from Old Sorbian Drežďany, meaning people of the riverside forest) is the capital city of the German Federal Free State of Saxony. ... Hochschule für Bildende Künste Dresden The Hochschule für Bildende Künste Dresden (usually translated from German as Dresden University of Visual Arts and abbreviated HfBK Dresden or simply HfBK) is a vocational university of visual arts located in Dresden, Germany. ... The Scream by Edvard Munch (1893) which inspired 20th century Expressionists Portrait of Eduard Kosmack by Egon Schiele Rehe im Walde by Franz Marc Elbe Bridge I by Rolf Nesch On White II by Wassily Kandinsky, 1923. ... George Grosz (July 26, 1893 – July 6, 1959) was a prominent member of the Berlin Dada and New Objectivity group, known especially for his savagely caricatural drawings of Berlin life in the 1920s. ... DaDa is an album by Alice Cooper, released in 1983 (see 1983 in music). ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... Darmstadt is a city in the Bundesland (federal state) of Hessen in Germany. ...

In 1924 he joined the Berlin Secession; by this time he was developing an increasingly realistic style of painting that used thin glazes of oil paint over a tempera underpainting, in the manner of the old masters. His 1923 painting The Trench, which depicted dismembered and decomposed bodies of soldiers after a battle caused such a furor that the Wallraf-Richartz Museum hid the painting behind a curtain. In 1925 the then-mayor of Cologne, Konrad Adenauer, cancelled the purchase of the painting and forced the director of the museum to resign. 1924 (MCMXXIV) was a leap year starting on Tuesday (link will take you to calendar). ... The Berlin Secession (Berliner Secession) was an art associaiton founded by Berlin artists in 1898 as an alternative to the conservative state-run Association of Berlin Artists. ... A 1367 tempera on wood by Niccolò Semitecolo. ... 1923 (MCMXXIII) was a common year starting on Monday (link will take you to calendar). ... Wallraf-Richartz Museum The Wallraf-Richartz Museum is one of the three main museums in Cologne. ... Cologne (German:   ; Kölsch: Kölle /ˈkÅ“É«É™/) is Germanys fourth-largest city after Berlin, Hamburg and Munich, and is the largest city both in the German Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than... Konrad Hermann Josef Adenauer (IPA: ) (January 5, 1876 – April 19, 1967) was a conservative German statesman. ...

Dix was a contributor to the Neue Sachlichkeit exhibition in Mannheim in 1925, which featured works by George Grosz, Max Beckmann, Heinrich Maria Davringhausen, Karl Hubbuch, Rudolf Schlichter, Georg Scholz and many others. Dix's work, like that of Grosz—his friend and fellow veteran—was extremely critical of contemporary German society and often dwelled on the act of Lustmord, or sexual murder. He drew attention to the bleaker side of life, unsparingly depicting prostitution, violence, old age and death. Mannheim is a city in Germany. ... 1925 (MCMXXV) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will take you to calendar). ... Max Beckmann. ... Heinrich Maria Davringhausen (October 21, 1894 – December 13, 1970) was a German painter associated with the New Objectivity. ... Karl Hubbuch (November 21, 1891 – December 26, 1979) was a German painter and draftsman associated with the New Objectivity. ... Rudolf Schlichter (December 6th 1890 in Calw - May 3rd 1955 in Munich) was a German artist. ... Georg Scholz (October 10, 1890 – November 27, 1945) was a German realist painter. ... A lust murder is a homicide in which the offender stabs, cuts, pierces, slashes, or otherwise mutilates the sexual organs or areas of the victims body. ...

Among his most famous paintings are the triptych Metropolis (1928) and the startling Portrait of the Journalist Sylvia von Harden (1926). His depictions of the legless and disfigured veterans that were a common sight on Berlin's streets in the 1920s, very clearly illustrate their forgotten status within contemporary German society, a concept also developed in Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front. The Raising of the Cross, Onze-Lieve-Vrouwekathedraal, Antwerp A triptych (from the Greek tri- three + ptychē fold) is a work of art (usually a panel painting) which is divided into three sections, or three carved panels which are hinged together. ... Erich Remarque, about 1963. ... For the film, see All Quiet on the Western Front (film). ...

When the Nazis came to power in Germany, they regarded Dix as a degenerate artist and had him sacked from his post as an art teacher at the Dresden Academy. He later moved to Lake Constance. Dix's paintings The Trench and War cripples were exhibited in the Nazi exhibition of degenerate art, Entartete Kunst. They were later burned. The Nazi party used a right-facing swastika as their symbol and the red and black colors were said to represent Blut und Boden (blood and soil). ... The Magdeburger Ehrenmal (Magdeburg cenotaph) created by Ernst Barlach was declared to be degenerate art due to the anti-war motive. ...

Dix was forced to join the Nazi-controlled Imperial chamber of Fine Arts in order to be able to work as an artist at all and had to promise to paint only landscapes. He still painted an occasional allegorical painting that criticized Nazi ideals. In 1939 he was arrested on a trumped-up charge of being involved in a plot against Hitler but was later released.

During World War II Dix was conscripted into the Volkssturm. He was captured by French troops at the end of the war and released in February 1946. Combatants Major Allied powers: United Kingdom Soviet Union United States Republic of China and others Major Axis powers: Nazi Germany Italy Japan and others Commanders Winston Churchill Joseph Stalin Franklin Roosevelt Harry Truman Chiang Kai-Shek Adolf Hitler Benito Mussolini Hideki Tojo Casualties Military dead: 17,000,000 Civilian dead... German Peoples Storm Defense Force The Volkssturm, literally translated as Peoples Storm in the meaning of National Storm, was a German national militia of the last months of the Nazis Third Reich. ... 1946 (MCMXLVI) was a common year starting on Tuesday. ...

Dix eventually returned to Dresden. After the war most of his paintings were religious allegories or depictions of post-war suffering. An allegory (from Greek αλλος, allos, other, and αγορευειν, agoreuein, to speak in public) is a figurative mode of representation conveying a meaning other than (and in addition to) the literal. ...

Otto Dix died in Singen, Germany, in 1969. Singen (Hohentwiel) is a city in the very south of the federal state of Baden-Württemberg, Germany. ... 1969 (MCMLXIX) was a common year starting on Wednesday (the link is to a full 1969 calendar). ...

References

• Karcher, Eva (1988). Otto Dix 1891-1969: His Life and Works. Cologne: Benedikt Taschen. ISBN 3-8228-0272-1
• Michalski, Sergiusz (1994). New Objectivity. Cologne: Benedikt Taschen. ISBN 3-8228-9650-0
• Schmied, Wieland (1978). Neue Sachlichkeit and German Realism of the Twenties. London: Arts Council of Great Britain. ISBN 0-7287-0184-7

External links

• Otto-Dix-House (birthplace) in Gera
• Otto Dix in Dresden
• Ten Dreams Galleries
• Small gallery of works at mess.net
• http://www.otto-dix.de (German website also in English)
• The Prodigious Century