OTTO DIX

Otto Dix

1891 Gera – 1969 Singen

Dix was one of the most prominent representatives of the German post-expressionism generation. In 1919 he co-founded the Dresdner Sezession and from 1920 he painted socially critically works in the style of the Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity).

He is most famous for his biting satirical paintings from the time of the Weimar Republic, which portray the beneficiaries of war, as well as its consequences, such as poverty and unemployment. His works are characterised by extreme artistic flexibility and stylistic diversity. In 1926, he became a professor at the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts. In 1933, the Nazis stripped him of his faculty and denounced his works as degenerate – a deep cut into his career. I

n 1955 Dix took part in documenta I and in 1964 in documenta III. His work is mainly found in European and German museums such as the Neuen Nationalgalerie in Berlin or the Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich.

Selected works

Reinhard Pods, Ohne Titel (will), 1981, Oil on canvas, 200 x 220.3 cm

Otto Dix
Südlicher Matrose

1923
lithography
46.2 x 31.5 cm

Exhibitions

Neudecker Galerie Haas AG Zürich

11 December 2014 – 30 January 2015

Mariele Neudecker, Otto Dix and Paul Klee

Every one of us knows it. At some point, you find yourself in a very special landscape, in the Alps, by the sea, in the steppe, in a valley, or, as Mariele Neudecker once did, in the Arctic. And you want to see what you see, the breathtaking panorama, the comforting closeness of a forest, the endless expanse of the sea, the steppe, or that of the polar night as a whole, to keep it in your memory, even to assimilate it. But this is simply not possible. Because, as Neudecker writes, “…somehow the sockets of my eyes suddenly seem to be too small, close, too tight and deep…Needless to say: my camera lens frames and crops, everything way too small and too tightly.” And no pair of eyes, no matter how complex, can fully grasp that which once touched our innermost being.

Catalogue

Otto Dix

Published by Galerie Haas Zürich