Dix, Wilhelm Heinrich Otto

(12/2/1891 Untermhaus-7/25/1969 Singen) (Germany); aka Dix, Otto

   Painter and graphic artist. Largely a self-taught artist. From 1926-1933 he held a position as a professor at the Academy in Dresden, until the Nazis accused him of producing degenerate work and removed him. Accused for an attempt on the life of Hitler, he spent most of World War II in prison. After the war, he taught painting at the Academy in Dusseldorf. Together with Georg Grosz, he is generally considered a leading artist of the style known as the New Objectivity or Magic Realism. Best known for his social criticism in depicting the 1920s lowlife in Berlin.

   Reproductions: Dedicated to sadists; c1922; watercolor and pen; Neret 1993: p. 191 . Gypsy and girl; lithograph; Kronhausen, 1968: p. 108 . Impotent desire; Brusendorff, 1960b: p. 79 [B]. Memory of the glass house in Brussels; 1920; oil on canvas; Olley, 2005: p. 48 [C]. Metropolis (triptych); 1927-1928; mixed media; Neret 1993: p. 68 [C]. Myself in Brussels; 1922; watercolor and pencil; Neret 1993: p. 170 [C]. Powerless greed; Hurwood, 1975: p. 195 [B]. [Pregnant woman with man]; Klinger, 1982c: figs. 72-74 [B]. Sadisten Gewidmet; 1922; watercolor, pencil, pen, ink; Olley, 2005: p. 49 [C]. Sailor with Black prostitute; 1922; watercolor; Smith, 1980: pp. 28-29 [C]. Souvenir de la galerie des glaces a Bruxelles; 1920; Lucie-Smith 1997: p. 90 [C]. Young whore; 1922; Brusendorff, 1960b: p. 79 [B].

   [b]Source: Benezit, vol. 4: pp. 965 -969; DoA vol. 9: pp. 41 -43; Eva Karcher, Eros und Tod im Werk von Otto Dix: Studien zur Geschichte des Korpers in den Zwanziger Jahren (Munster: Lit, 1984); Vollmer I 1953: p. 571.