Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
Otto Dix
2006
www.march.es
Fundacin Juan March
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OTTO DIX
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O TTO D IX
Fundacin Juan March
INDICE
7
Presentacion
9
A la belleza
Notas sobre la vida y la obra de Otto Dix
Ulrike Lorenz
29
Obras
143
Documentos
151
Otto Dix
El destino de un artista en Alemania (1891-1969)
Ulrike Lorenz
187
Catlogo
195
Bibliografa
197
Texts in English
La Fundacin Juan March ha contado con la colaboracin, asesoramiento y ayuda de las siguientes
personas e instituciones, que han hecho posible la presentacin de esta exposicin en Madrid y a las
cuales desea expresar su ms sincero reconocimiento:
Con la exposicin retrospectiva del pintor alemn Otto Dix (Gera, 1891- Singen, 1968) la Fundacin
Juan March ofrece por primera vez en Espaa una muestra de la obra pictrica de este artista, que
abarca desde 1914 hasta el ao de su muerte, acaecida en 1969.
La produccin artstica de Otto Dix reflej implacablemente su poca. Crecido en el seno de una
familia obrera en las postrimeras del Imperio Alemn, ya durante la Primera Guerra Mundial formul
su autodefinicin como artista: el que tiene el valor de decir s. El ascenso y la cada de la Repblica
de Weimar acompaaron sus primeros pasos en Dsseldorf y su carrera de artista en Berln y en
Dresde. Bajo el nacionalsocialismo fue destituido de sus cargos, difamado y calificado de artista
degenerado, y se retir a vivir, en una suerte de exilio, cerca del lago de Constanza. Tras la Segunda
Guerra Mundial, la divisin poltica de Europa y de Alemania se convertira, para Otto Dix, en una carga
que hubo de soportar muy personalmente, y que le oblig a sobrellevar una peculiar existencia entre
las dos Alemanias.
Considerado universalmente uno de los ms relevantes artistas alemanes, Otto Dix atraves, a lo largo
de su larga vida, casi todas las etapas del siglo de los ismos. Fue realista, expresionista, dadasta,
un Meister a la manera de los primitivos alemanes, un pintor a la moda, un eclctico; calificado de
pintor reaccionario de oscuros temas o desacreditado como inventor de obscenidades contrarias a
la moral, Otto Dix fue un obseso de lo constatable y un visionario, un moralista cuyo realismo
comprometido y ambivalente continuar sorprendiendo siempre. Como hombre realista, confiaba en
la realidad que poda verse y tambin en su aguda mirada de pintor: () ver solamente lo que est
ah, lo exterior. Lo interior se manifiesta por s mismo.
Para la organizacin de esta exposicin, la Fundacin Juan March ha contado en todo momento con
el asesoramiento de la especialista en Otto Dix, Ulrike Lorenz, directora del Kunstforum Ostdeutsche
Galerie de Ratisbona y autora de los ensayos del catlogo, a quien expresamos nuestro ms sincero
reconocimiento por su indispensable ayuda. Asimismo, agradecemos a la Fundacin Otto Dix, y de
modo especial a su Presidente Rainer Pfefferkorn y su esposa, Bettina Dix, nieta del pintor, su apoyo
generoso e incondicional en la organizacin de esta exposicin.
Febrero, 2006
A LA BELLEZA
NOTAS SOBRE LA VIDA Y LA OBRA DE OTTO DIX
ULRIKE LORENZ
Durante toda su vida, Otto Dix da forma e interpreta en sus cuadros la realidad en el campo de tensin de
su obsesin por lo real (en contraposicin con lo espiritual de Vasili Kandinsky) y de una pasin secreta por
la intensificacin y la precisin, por la declaracin de validez general sobre las cuestiones existenciales del
ser humano. La realidad es el punto de referencia esencial del artista. De la vida proceden los impulsos
creativos, la cotidianidad es el modelo para la obra, la contemporaneidad imprime forma. Pero en la bs-
queda de una fuerza expresiva genuinamente alemana en la era de la modernidad, Dix busca una y otra
vez en tcnica y tema, estilo y materiales la confrontacin con los maestros antiguos del Renacimiento y
del Romanticismo. As, el presente y la historia del arte se revelan como los dos polos de su arte, entre los
que se despliega la ambigedad de su mundo pictrico y su influjo hasta hoy electrizante.
En 1920 la carne de can inventa con furiosos desmontajes, segn el pensamiento dadasta, un realis-
mo brutal (verismo) que lo hace famoso y lo desacredita. La mxima es: superar la frialdad del mundo con
la frialdad del arte, cosa que obviamente no es posible. El mundo siempre es ms fro. Pero en la general
furia de haber sido engaado (George Grosz), Dix desahoga su desilusin con frmulas pictricas de
agresiva dureza. Su arte es una sonda reflectora. Con ella Dix alcanza lo que acecha detrs de las cosas,
ms all del bien y del mal, de lo verdadero o falso. Y este positivismo brutal, que constata sin alterarse,
que Friedrich Nietzsche defini en su da como arte, es todo menos objetivo (tal como sugiere el concepto
Nueva Objetividad que la historia del arte aplica a la cultura de la Repblica de Weimar). Dix lleva el rea-
lismo hasta el extremo, y, al hacerlo, desaparece detrs del acto de describir la familiaridad de lo supues-
tamente cotidiano, acostumbrado, reconocible. La minuciosa descripcin del detalle convierte al objeto en
inexplicable. La extraordinaria precisin supone des-realizacin. El naturalismo a ultranza es un instrumento
de distanciamiento. En esta indiferencia se enraizan las vigorosas irritaciones y la dualidad de la obra de
Dix, que han convertido cada cuadro en palestra de interpretaciones opuestas.
El arte como aventura impulsa a Dix hasta las ltimas simas humanas y con frecuencia ms all del buen
gusto. En el apogeo de la vanguardia abstracta, para l todo est en juego: la imagen de la persona y las
eternas cuestiones existenciales sobre eros y tnatos, violencia y pasin. l se atiene a las cosas, perma-
nece dentro de las circunstancias y duramente pegado al detalle. Siempre fui conservador... y de qu
manera!. Porque tambin esto le es aplicable: pintar es un intento de crear orden. El arte para m es con-
En los cambios y contradicciones de su obra, Otto Dix ha reflejado como ningn otro artista las inte-
rrupciones y rechazos del siglo XX. Siempre tuvo seguros el ataque y la defensa del provocativo o reve-
lador espritu de la poca. Pero con la rotunda decisin que le caracteriza, Dix siempre se mantuvo fiel
a s mismo... y contina siendo un caso polmico del arte alemn. No pinto ni para unos ni para otros.
Lo siento. Soy un proletario soberano de tal calibre verdad? que digo: Esto lo hago! Y podis decir
lo que queris. Para qu es bueno esto, ni yo mismo lo s. Pero lo hago. Porque s que eso fue as y
no de otra manera.
Me har famoso o me desacreditar: Otto Dix ha hecho realidad por partida doble su temprana profeca
y su prolfica obra abarca cerca de 500 retratos. Junto a Kollwitz, Corinth y Beckmann se cuenta entre los
artistas de la modernidad que siempre a lo largo de su vida se retrataron con escepticismo. Como fumador
apocalptico (Autorretrato fumando, 1914, cat. 1), poco antes de la Primera Guerra Mundial manifiesta con
fiera mirada su pasin por el arte: nacimiento del artista del espritu dionisaco. El ltimo autorretrato con su
nieta Marcella (Autorretrato con Marcella, 1969, cat. 35), realizado el ao de su muerte, revela las huellas
vitales de una existencia con aristas... y al final arranca por vez primera una sonrisa a la contradiccin fun-
damental entre el nacimiento y la muerte. En medio, autorreflexin; en todas las edades y por motivos posi-
blemente dispares; en todos los estilos y etapas -desde el desprendimiento expresionista, pasando por an-
lisis afilados como cuchillos, hasta el alegorismo de los antiguos maestros; desde el efmero boceto, pasando
por estudios de detalle, hasta el cuadro alambicado y sutil.
10
Ya en 1914 brilla como un fuego fatuo en el humo del cigarrillo (Autorretrato fumando, cat. 1), entre
la media luna y el titilar de estrellas, una melancola saturnina, la atrabilis del autoconocimiento.
El fuego creativo recorre palpitante la escena del estudio como vibrato vitalista: pintar como inspi-
rar y expirar. El humo paridor de la imagen inhalado y expulsado puede ser interpretado tambin
como signo de emanacin espiritual y de inspiracin divina. As esta declaracin de accin pro-
clama por primera vez la difcil dialctica de la existencia creativa: encontrar el camino a su obra
entre la invencin y la inspiracin, el boceto y la gracia, la ocurrencia y la estructuracin. Durante
toda su vida Dix seguir la pista de la inspiracin; su conjuro mediante el (auto)retrato el conju-
ro a sus musas cambiantes lo conseguir slo de forma muy imperfecta.
Con el autorretrato Nostalgia en el retculo csmico del da y la noche, de Eros y Tnatos, el soldado
que retorna a casa llega de nuevo a Dresde en 1919. All la exaltacin mtica se sosiega pronto con la
autoirona dadasta (Mi amiga Elis, 1919, cat. 6). Para el erotmano, la inspiracin se encarna sobre todo
en el cuerpo femenino, lo cual conduce en ocasiones al crimen sexual y a la alucinacin (Cuadro con
espejo (autorretrato), 1923, acuarela, cat. 53).
11
En 1933 Dix invoca de nuevo a su Musa bajo la figura de diosa del destino
sobre la esfera del mundo cuando, tras ser destituido y difamado como artista
Fig. 4: Autorretrato con caballete, degenerado, se ve obligado a empezar de nuevo (Pintor con musa, 1933, car-
1926, carboncillo, boncillo, fig. 5). Ahora la creacin de su fantasa aparece detrs de su espal-
Galera Pels-Leusden, Berln.
da, inclinada como una tentacin intil: elegante y efmera, un decorado plano,
un entramado equilibrado de lneas a carboncillo sobre papel tiziano verdoso.
Al igual que la diosa de la Fortuna, la musa del pintor conoce a fondo el dile-
ma: Fortuna y Nmesis a la vez, portadora de felicidad y ngel vengador. El
artista, desgarrado entre la splica y el rechazo, la necesita ante la continua
sospecha de una falta (de inspiracin) y en lucha permanente con su propia
hybris (querer crear cuadros sin inspiracin divina).
Sin embargo, tambien esa Musa paradjica de 1933 queda reducida a boce-
to, igual que la de 1926. Es desterrada al dorso de otro gran dibujo prepa-
ratorio y constituye por tanto el reverso de Los siete pecados capitales. En
la ejecucin Dix prefiere la relevante interpretacin de la poca a una cues-
tionable autointerpretacin.
Fig. 5: Pintor con musa, 1933, Ahora se torna evidente que un cuadro del estudio con musa alegora de la
carboncillo, Kunstmuseum
Stuttgart.
propia existencia es el tema central del propio artista durante la etapa decisi-
va de su biografa. Pero esta diosa de la fortuna se muestra esquiva al pintor.
Slo el dibujante deja sobre el papel rastros secretos de sus manifestaciones y virajes, indicios de los cam-
bios y complejidad de su obra. Dibujando consigue preservar el espacio intelectual de su mismidad.
12
Y no obstante, durante toda su vida, Dix se concibe ante todo como pintor.
Slo una nica vez se pinta dibujando y en modo alguno es casual que
suceda en el momento de la inspiracin. En 1943 a San Lucas-Dix se le apa-
rece la Virgen en el bosque (San Lucas pintando a la Virgen (autorretrato),
1943, fig. 6). Sentado encima del toro, esboza a una musa domesticada con
ropas cristianas. Dix confiere sus rasgos al legendario patrn de los artis-
tas. Al final de la alegora del propio quehacer recurre a un topos histrico-
artstico mas en vano. Tambin ahora fracasa el pintor. El cuadro queda
inconcluso. La inspiracin no se deja traducir a imgenes: est en el cuadro
o no est. Al final queda la esperanza en la gracia divina: La voluntad no sir-
ve para nada, escribe Dix en una nota poco antes de morir, slo la gracia.
Fig. 6: San Lucas pintando a la
Virgen (autorretrato), 1943,
tcnica mixta, Fundacin Otto
II. Las guerras mundiales en su obra Dix, Vaduz.
La furia no se puede pintar
La guerra y el arte son, adems de los retratos, los polos entre los que se mueve la biografa y la obra de Otto
Dix. La Primera Guerra Mundial es el estallido inicial. El entrenamiento demencial de cuatro aos marcar
su obra a lo largo de ms de tres dcadas y su visin del mundo hasta su muerte. Cuando en el verano de
1914 es llamado a filas en Dresde, Dix tiene 22 aos, y uno despus se presenta voluntario para ir al frente;
en la navidad de 1918 reaparece en casa de sus padres en Gera: tiene 27 aos y ya no es un joven, pero se
ha enriquecido con experiencias existenciales y posee una abundante obra dibujstica. Ningn otro artista ale-
mn ha vivido, dibujado... y constatado de esa forma la guerra de trincheras en primera lnea del frente: hay
que ser capaz de decir s, s a las manifestaciones humanas, que estn ah y lo estarn siempre. A los 53 aos,
el artista vive los ltimos coletazos de la Segunda Guerra Mundial como reservista; reacciona desengaado.
La consternacin por los diez meses pasados como prisionero de guerra y el espanto a la vista de la des-
truccin total de su amada Dresde determinan el impetuoso comienzo de su expresiva obra tarda.
A juzgar por los cuadros blicos de los antiguos, parece como si sus autores nunca hubieran estado
all. Dix s estuvo presente, siempre cerca de los sucesos y sin posibilidades de retirada. Las dos gue-
rras mundiales del siglo XX, incluyendo corazonadas y consecuencias ps-
quicas tardas, se convierten en un acicate que influye continuamente en su
labor artstica y propicia nuevos arranques y transformaciones bruscas, un
incremento temtico y metafrico.
13
Pero pronto la realidad le supera: cuatro aos como carne de can en las trincheras de Reims y Arras, del
Somme y el Marne, en el sur de Flandes y en Bielorrusia, la mayor parte del tiempo como simple suboficial
responsable de un destacamento de ametralladoras. Ah dibujar significa sobrevivir. Helene Jakob, correli-
gionaria en las ideas esperantistas, le provee de pliegos de papel de estraza amarillentos de formato cua-
drado y del tamao del macuto (aproximadamente 29 x 29 cms. o 40 x 40 cms. mximo) y de los utensilios
imprescindibles para el artista en el frente: lpices blandos de carpintero, pastel graso, tinta china negra y bri-
llantes aguadas. A cambio, Dix le entregar para su custodia unos quinientos dibujos y casi cien aguadas. El
espectro temtico abarca desde el retrato individual hasta la escena de masas, desde el panorama natural
hasta primeros planos de escombros, crteres de bombas y ruinas. En el centro, la fascinante esttica de des-
truccin del paisaje en la guerra de trincheras. Superficies de tierra desquiciadas, estructuras formales gro-
tescas, tonalidades extraas conforman el estilo del dibujante (Tumbas en Reims II, 1915, guache, cat. 36).
La vida cotidiana del soldado proyecta sombras fantasmagricas en la penumbra de las trincheras: dor-
mir, fumar, despiojarse, escribir (Suboficial S., 1917; Mesa de marmol, 1917, cat. 39 y 40). A partir de
1917, el artillero se distancia del horror vivido, del tema lucha y muerte mediante una explcita volun-
tad artstica y un incremento de lo metafrico. Entran en accin guerreros mticos, hombres sin atribu-
tos (Soldados bandose, 1917, cat. 38).
14
balance realista de la Guerra Mundial comienza una odisea por exposiciones y depsitos de museos, por
cerebros de militaristas y estetas, hasta que su rastro se pierde en el auto de fe de los nacionalsocialistas
en 1939. Ese Dix provoca nuseas, afirma el historiador del arte Julius Meier-Graefe en julio de 1924.
Un mes despus, la serie La guerra, con 50 aguafuertes (fig. 10.), publicada por el entusiasta marchante
Karl Nierendorf, vuelve a provocar las iras de los nacionalis-
tas y el reconocimiento internacional. Seis aos despus de
su regreso de las tormentas de fuego, Dix refresca su memo-
ria con fotografas e impresiones reales de las momias de
Palermo (Entraas humanas, 1920, acuarela, fig. 11). El gra-
bador extrema su realismo radical para ofrecer una sinopsis
cclica de la guerra. En su argumentacin utiliza la tcnica
flexible del aguafuerte, desde el sencillo buril, pasando por
la dura punta seca, hasta la aguatinta de muchas capas.
15
Durante toda su vida Prometeo-Dix forj personas a su imagen: desde la primera dedicacin dibujstica a sus
padres hacia 1903, pasando por centenares de aproximaciones a sus contemporneos a travs de la socie-
dad y de sus estilos, hasta la ltima revelacin en el autorretrato con su nieta poco antes de su muerte en
1969. Todo lo que uno pinta es autodescripcin. Nunca le interesa la reproduccin mecnica de lo real, el
hallazgo material, una instantnea parecida a la fotografa. Su objetivo es siempre la expresin anmica, la for-
ma individual y el color especfico de un carcter, el fenmeno global, es decir, una visin de la esencia, que
presupone fuerza e intuicin en el artista. Slo el pintor puede ver y conformar el conjunto. En la obra de Dix
casi todo es retrato: fisiognoma de la poca, da igual que se trate de composicin sobre la guerra o cuadro
viviente de la sociedad de la gran ciudad, desnudo o paisaje. Sobre todo pinte mucho retrato!, aconseja Max
Liebermann al apreciado joven artista en la dcada de los veinte. De todos modos, todo lo que pintamos nos-
otros, los alemanes, es retrato. Su bigrafo Otto Conzelmann lo llama escultor de personas.
Los retratos de compaeros de viaje y de ideologa, amigos y desconocidos, viejos trabajadores y muje-
res encintas, colegas artistas y clientes de la bohemia y de la burguesa revelan su penetracin psico-
lgica y su aguda caracterizacin individual. Pero al mismo tiempo son tambin siempre retratos de
roles en los que brilla el tipo social, el temperamento definido, el ambiente de la poca y tambin el
gusto indestructible de Dix por lo grotesco, originando una amalgama inimitable. En el retrato el pin-
tor sostiene ante sus contemporneos un espejo deformante que revela y torna reconocibles las habi-
tuales deformaciones debidas a la situacin y la conducta. Por el contrario, en la mirada vivaz del dibu-
jante coinciden voluntad de constatacin y participacin emocional.
Dibujando, Dix capta la primera impresin del objeto, que para l es lo ms importante. La captacin instin-
tiva de la esencia significa ambas cosas: amor a primera vista y acechar la verdad que subyace a las cosas.
El dibujante intenta atrapar y retener esto por cualquier medio: rondando con insistencia los modelos y temas,
mirando y remirando, anotando con celeridad un carisma personal, la cualidad fisiognmica, el fluido perso-
nal. Si la primera impresin se fija y se acrecienta, se reforma y deforma en el lento proceso pictrico, sobre
el papel se conserva con toda su frescura... y riqueza de significados. Ambos, el dibujante y el objeto de su
deseo, son autnticos en gran medida. Slo el dibujante se encuentra realmente cerca de la persona.
16
El hijo del abogado de Dresde Fritz Glaser recuerda casi setenta aos despus que, al posar, siendo un adoles-
cente, para el cuadro familiar de 1925, le asust el comportamiento perturbador del sombro artista que no se toma-
ba tiempo para dibujar con cuidado lo que observaba ... Yo entonces no comprend que l deba tener una memo-
ria visual magnfica. l no slo reproduca lo externo de una persona, sino tambin la impresin emocional que le
provocaba dicha persona. Eso no sacaba a la luz las facetas ms halageas de sus modelos.
El retrato es, junto con el desnudo, el mbito principal del dinmico realismo de Dix. En Dresde, en su po-
ca estudiantil anterior a 1914, es a los amigos ms ntimos a los que su compaero imagina siguiendo las
ideas nietzscheanas y el estilo expresionista (Retrato del pintor Baumgrtel, 1914, cat. 2; Retrato del pintor
Kurt Lohse I, 1914, cat. 3). En la poca de posguerra se centra en los seres
marginales de la gran ciudad: prostitutas, proletarios, pequeoburgueses, bohe-
mios. Dix los retrata en un expresivo primer plano y con una creciente mirada
sarcstica (Nio obrero, 1920, cat. 8; La familia del pintor Adalbert Trillhaase,
1923, cat. 9). Los dos monumentales dibujos a lpiz su padre y su madre
leyendo, como lo hacan en los das de la infancia, de 1920 (cat. 64 y 65),
estn influidos por el mximo verismo y al mismo tiempo por la ms aguda diso-
nancia: escindido entre polmica y representacin, el dibujante abandona la
precisin retratstica diseccionadora en aras de una solemne objetividad carac-
terizadora. Los retratos dobles al leo de 1921 y 1924 denotan la evolucin bio-
grfica y estilstica desde el punto de vista expresivo y tcnico: en el primero,
surgido directamente in situ, todava se vislumbra la cercana al verismo; el
segundo, pintado ya en Dsseldorf, presagia el distanciamiento que Dix vela
con la irona acorazada de la Nueva Objetividad (fig. 13). Los padres en visin
retrospectiva: una pareja rgida en pose frontal muy detallista, reducida y ence- Fig. 14: Nelly entre flores, 1924,
leo, Museo Folkwang Essen.
rrada entre el dominante respaldo del sof y el margen inferior del cuadro; con
mirada aturdida muestran los atributos de su vida de trabajo: dos cabezas de
rasgos muy expresivos y en primer plano cuatro manos proletarias.
Desde 1921, y sobre todo desde 1923, la atencin del muy ocupado pintor y gra-
bador de retratos la centran personalidades escogidas del mundo del arte y de la
cultura. Sin duda una simbiosis de mutuo provecho, provocada y fomentada por
marchantes como Johanna Ey y Karl Nierendorf o coleccionistas como Hans Koch
y Hugo Erfurth. Con sus propios hijos aparece ms distendido; su mirada se acla-
ra a veces. Con Nelly entre flores, de 1924 (fig. 14), Dix se abre un camino de reti-
rada hacia el Romanticismo siguiendo el espritu de Philipp Otto Runge.
Entre 1925 y 1927 la mirada vuelve a sufrir una ampliacin decisiva en la metr-
poli berlinesa. Dix disfruta del xito como retratista del mundo intelectual y bohe-
mio de la Repblica de Weimar. La recin conquistada pintura a capas con tcni-
ca leo-tmpera, permite un carcter artesano casi de maestro antiguo en el
hallazgo y gradacin de individualidades relevantes. Los escenarios de la accin
son rostro y manos, mmica y gestualidad, pose y aspecto, el color personal del
Fig. 15: Retratro de la bailarina
retratado y las grandes orejas del maestro, que ste gusta de transmitir a sus cam-
Anita Berber, 1925, leo y tmpe-
biantes personajes retratados. La cabeza de Anita Berber es una mscara (fig. 15) ra, Fundacin Otto Dix, Vaduz.
17
Para el afirmativo Otto Dix la doble contabilidad de la vida (Ernst Jnger) el movimiento circular entre naci-
miento y muerte, la dialctica de Eros y Tnatos es condicin fundamental de la existencia y fundamento
de su arte. Hay que ver las cosas tal como son. l siempre es afectado y observador al mismo tiempo: un
agente doble. Alguien que tiene sus sentidos en el frente y en la colina de los generales y que entregado
a los fenmenos con ingenuidad y serenidad disfruta de la propia experiencia y la traslada directamente
con el lpiz al dibujo, con el buril al aguafuerte, con el pincel a la pintura, sin rodeos a travs del intelecto.
Dix est presente en la mortandad de la Gran Guerra y en el nacimiento de sus hijos. Bajo su direccin,
la muerte siempre interviene vigorosamente en el espectculo de la vida, y no solamente en los expre-
sivos panoramas de la Guerra Mundial, escenarios sociales y alegoras
al memento mori, sino en todo en lo que inflama su mirada con instin-
to infalible: cuerpos plasmados hasta el menor detalle, actitudes y fisiog-
nomas obstinadas, caracteres soberanos, instinto vital y sexual, tenta-
cin y depravacin. Aqu es aplicable, con ms persistencia y
encarecimiento an que en otros temas, que el arte no es un seguro de
vida, sino testimonio y riesgo. No, los artistas no deben mejorar ni hacer
proselitismo. Son demasiado escasos. Slo tienen que dar testimonio.
18
En 1926 Tres mujeres (fig. 19) vuelve a demostrar, en el filo entre la pol-
mica verista y el clasicismo de la Nueva Objetividad, la aguda irona del
Fig. 19: Tres mujeres, 1926, leo,
cambio iconogrfico: el demiurgo Dix llama a tres gracias y renuncia a su Kunstmuseum Stuttgart.
19
propia aparicin, que haba planeado en el expresivo boceto. El cuadro es la quintaesencia de los rei-
terados estudios de desnudos: alberga tres tipos y actitudes dignos de un manual, tres caracteres y
temperamentos, casi tambin tres edades de la vida.
Con su huda al lago de Constanza, Dix no slo pierde el entorno urbano de Dresde, sino tambin el
estimulante mercado de modelos de la Academia. El desnudo femenino emigra al mito. Pero incluso
con ropajes cristianos, despus de 1933 ya slo desempea un papel de comparsa. Aumenta por el
contrario el gusto acadmico por la alegora.
Con el tema tradicional de la muerte y la doncella, en el que se encarna explcitamente la temtica fun-
damental, se cierra un gran grupo de su obra: en 1913 y 1918 en interpretacin simbolista y expresio-
nista; en 1923 y 1926 en las parejas de enamorados dispares, en 1930 reinterpretado como alegora
de la Melancola, en 1941 Dix niega el efecto de la caducidad sobre su joven hija Nelly (boceto para La
muerte y la nia, 1941, carboncillo, fig. 20). La muerte de sta en 1955 le abrir los ojos. Derrotado, acep-
ta la suya propia, no sin haber ensayado otra vez en su ltimo ao de vida tres desnudos radicales.
Fig. 20: Boceto para La muerte y la El retrato berlins es un autorretrato programtico. Dix est con una
nia, 1941, carboncillo, Fundacin
Otto Dix, Vaduz. bata de pintor manchada ante una tabla de aproximadamente 1,80 x 2
20
Ante los ojos del dibujante, de la superficie blanca surge un rostro de frente, cabeza de un desnu-
do capital. La pletrica mujer de cabellos ondeantes trae consigo un enjambre de modernas cabe-
zas peinadas a lo garon aparicin victoriosa del sexo femenino: tentacin y de safo para el artis-
ta, que incluso en la vejez tendr miedo de su temperamento. En 1927 Dix crea un peculiar desnudo
a lpiz (Figura femenina de pie (Estudio no utilizado para el cuadro Metrpolis), 1972, fig. 22). El
trazo, los esgrafiados blandos, tupidos, y sobre todo el pathos anacrnico de la figura est en las
antpodas de los modelos juvenilmente fros en el punto culminante del perodo de desnudos neo-
objetivista. Casi podra decirse que, en el curso de los neoclasicismos internacionales, una diosa
de la fecundidad se ha extraviado y ha llegado hasta Dix. Con ese aspecto externo, el pequeo
desnudo de apenas 40 cm es muy parecido al gran desnudo de la
fotografa de Berln. El pintor define el dibujo en su fichero como
estudio no utilizado para el cuadro Metrpolis.
21
ra, ante la puerta, desfilan prostitutas por delante de mutilados de guerra: a la izquierda una comi-
tiva de ajadas putas de arrabal; a la derecha, una cascada de meretrices elegantes emperifolladas.
Aqu realmente no hay sitio para una epifana del eros.
Algunos elementos de la composicin del ala derecha del Trptico son reconocibles en el retrato de Ber-
ln. Pero la Diosa de la Fecundidad se ha convertido en una prostituta de gran ciudad. La mujer frontal
del Trptico de la gran ciudad exhibe claramente, en el abrigo de piel rojo que se abre, el emblema de
una vulva como atributo de su profesin. Qu ha sucedido?
Un ciclo de estudios tempranos para un cuadro (no realizado as) de la metrpoli con dancing bar
a datar en el perodo berlins, hacia 1925/1926 (cat. 69-78) pone de manifiesto una sorpren-
dente evolucin de la obra. Slo aqu se hace patente la inicial ambicin iconogrfica del pintor
Dix.
Pero esto en Dresde ya no es up to date. El joven catedrtico de la Academia est sometido a una
gran presin para cumplir con las expectativas. Tiene que suministrar impulsos decisivos para un
Renacimiento del panorama actual de la ciudad del arte, tan rica en tradicin. Al verlo, uno recor-
daba a Cranach, escribe Will Grohmann sobre su misin. Dix concibe la nueva Metrpolis con pre-
tensin acrecentada como manifestacin de su potencia artstica para la exposicin del centenario
del Schsischer Kunstverein. Aqu se presenta por vez primera en el verano de 1928 el gran cua-
dro bajo el lema programtico Arte sajn de nuestro tiempo. Por ello, en el ltimo momento Dix
renuncia a la alegora y, en una contrajugada, intensifica su voluntad de sntesis. El eidtico com-
pila la compleja figura del cuadro no slo a partir de su propio repertorio temtico crtico de su po-
ca, sino tambin del inventario de principios esenciales de los alemanes antiguos (llaman la aten-
cin las alusiones temticas a Lucas Cranach, pintor de corte del prncipe elector de Sajonia a
comienzos del siglo XVI).
22
Como pintor, Dix acepta con plena conciencia la herencia de un arte especficamente alemn que quie-
re ser, en igual medida, realista y mtico, una fusin de mundo y espritu. El trptico Metrpolis convier-
te a Dix en el prncipe de los pintores en la Sajonia del siglo XX.
Los paisajes encuadran la obra de Otto Dix, el escultor de personas. Desterrados durante dos dca-
das en el cenit de su biografa, reclaman un lugar central en su obra temprana anterior a 1914 y desde
la emigracin al lago de Constanza en la posterior a 1933. Pero desde el principio el espacio natural
es doble: campo de experimentacin para una actitud de por vida humilde ante el objeto y campamen-
to base para conquistar la idea. Aqu el realista revela esa disyuntiva que lo convierte en un gran artis-
ta: por un lado desea acercarse lo ms posible a las cosas y, por otro, independizarse del tema para
inventarlo libremente.
En su nica declaracin pblica anterior a 1945, un breve texto programtico aparecido en la Ber-
liner Illustrierte (Nachtausgabe), del 3 de diciembre de 1927, Dix afirma: En cualquier caso, para m
el objeto sigue siendo lo primario, pues slo el objeto configura la forma. Siempre he concedido una
importancia capital a la cuestin de si me acerco lo ms posible al objeto que veo, pues para m es
ms importante el qu que el cmo. Slo a partir del qu se desarrolla el cmo. El 23 de junio de
1939, por el contrario, escribe desde el lago de Constanza a su amigo en Dresde, el artista Ernst
Bursche: Casi siempre hago paisaje, muchos estudios de rboles y casas, para independizarme
del tema e inventar libremente los paisajes ... al
fin y al cabo lo esencial es la expresin artsti-
ca, no la fidelidad al natural (que han inventa-
do el pequeoburgus y el pedante). A partir de
esta ambivalencia, de la analoga del objeto y la
invencin de la forma nacen esos marcados
estmulos que provocan no slo el realismo exa-
gerado de Dix de los aos veinte, sino tambin
su acrecentado alegorismo de los maestros anti-
guos de las dos dcadas posteriores. Entre la
realidad y la visin se extiende tambin en Dix el
amplio campo de la pintura de paisajes.
Entre 1906 y 1908, el alumno de primaria y apren- Fig. 23: Sol naciente, 1913, leo, coleccin particular.
diz de pintura decorativa destila, a partir de la forma
natural, estructuras bsicas y formas artsticas. A partir de la simbiosis de la contemplacin respetuosa y
de la condensacin estructural se desarrolla el realismo naturalista de su obra juvenil. Despus de 1911,
el alumno de la Escuela de Artes y Oficios desde la distancia de Dresde y con recin adquirida conciencia
estilstica y pasin por el arte dedica al paisaje natal entre naturaleza y ciudad adaptaciones expresio-
nistas e interpretaciones metafricas. Influido por la energa de van Gogh y las visiones apocalpticas de
Ludwig Meidner, Dix, en vsperas de la Primera Guerra Mundial, intensifica los paisajes invernales (fig. 23)
23
A la vista de la extravagante esttica blica llena de mpetu elemental, entre 1915 y 1918 el tema
del paisaje gana hondura y capacidad de metamorfosis inusitadas. La guerra de trincheras, para
el propio Dix un fenmeno de la naturaleza, envilece a la naturaleza, modifica el paisaje y lo car-
ga de energas insospechadas, deja al aire las entraas de la tierra, muertos que obstaculizan el
paso y humus, herencias de la poca. El dibujante trabaja con creciente voluntad de estilo hasta
que, a finales de 1918, el paisaje se convierte en puro signo. Para orientarse en terreno enemigo,
coloca en el campo de tiro tablas al leo realistas. Ahora est lo ms cerca posible a la funcin
existencial del arte como medio de supervivencia... y ms lejos que nunca de su ncleo esencial.
En una contraofensiva, ilumina en expresivas hojas una esttica autnoma de la Primera Guerra
Mundial, entre el silencio sepulcral y el fuego graneado como metfora de la trascendencia de locu-
ra y belleza.
Tras quince aos de euforia metropolitana, Dix, con su retirada forzosa a Hegau y al lago de Cons-
tanza durante la dictadura nazi, se siente desterrado ... al paisaje interrupcin capital en su vida
y en su obra. Desde 1934 la naturaleza se convierte en fundamento de su creacin. El artista con-
quista el paisaje con la tcnica de los maestros antiguos y el espejo del Romanticismo como espa-
cio esttico (de libertad): finalidad en s mismo y pantalla, escenario para la reflexin y la expresin
artstica. Adems de Hegau y el lago de Constanza, tambin los Alpes y las montaas de Silesia,
Bohemia y la Engadina se convierten en modelo paciente para reconocer, grabar en la memoria e
inventar la forma. Dibuja a conciencia, hasta la saciedad, pero al final de su vida pierde todo inte-
rs por el paisaje.
En los tiempos de glaciacin externa, durante los aos treinta y principios de los cuarenta, Dix, siguien-
do la tradicin del Romanticismo alemn, convierte los paisajes espirituales en lugar protegido de sus
vivencias ntimas y oculta la crtica a la poca (sin querer sobrevalorar y malinterpretar esto como opo-
sicin poltica). Los paisajes nevados y helados, los paisajes crepusculares y tormentosos llevan la
impronta de la poca. Dos paisajes csmicos de brillo teido de rojo influidos por Altdorfer (cat. 23),
anuncian en 1939, ao del estallido de la Segunda Guerra Mundial, el relampagueante fin del mundo
que profetiza el artista, igual que la imagen de Dresde ardiendo al fondo del escenario bblico Lot y sus
hijas.
La Naturaleza como metfora: esto queda reservado para la pintura. En la obra dibujstica, por
el contrario, cabe decir del paisaje lo mismo que del desnudo y del retrato: expresin quiere decir
aqu, a lo sumo, estilo, jams tendencia. Con punta de plata, almagre, pluma y tinta china, hasta
1939 Dix, con la perfeccin propia de los maestros antiguos, plasma imgenes autnomas a medio
camino entre la naturaleza y el ideal.
Con la recuperada expresividad de su obra de vejez, a partir de 1945 el paisaje natal se convier-
te en campo de experimentos formales. Se pone de manifiesto la nueva visin del viejo Dix, que
ahora considera el color y el contorno como meros valores expresivos. Superficies difanas, hue-
cos en la materia y reflejos irritan la mirada a travs de la ventana sobre la realidad, sealndo-
24
ltima dcada de su vida le debe a su iniciativa las obras ms vigorosas (Varn de dolores, 1964, fig.
24). Slo en una fase, la etapa decisiva de su obra, renuncia completamente a ellos. Entre 1919 y
1933 dispone de material suficiente en las calles de la Repblica de Weimar. Pero antes y despus
intenta acercarse a traves de variados caminos estilsticos y con diferentes mtodos iconogrficos,
arquetipos y prototipos.
Ambas alegoras de la muerte constituyen, por su homenaje a Grnewald, Baldung Grien y Brueghel,
obras fundamentales de un eclecticismo naturalista de base histrico-artstica, y al mismo tiempo,
25
en cuanto comentarios perspicaces sobre la historia de la poca, son las primeras alegoras polti-
cas de la obra. Dix hace triunfar en sus personificaciones actualizadas a los siete pecados capita-
les. Aunque hasta 1957 no retocar la clara metfora poltica del bigotito de Hitler en la Envidia, ya
en 1933 esta obra es una inequvoca danza de la muerte. El desierto crece, ay del que albergue
desiertos, cita a Nietzsche mientras sube la inundacin.
Cuatro aos ms tarde, con su difamacin en toda Alemania, comprende definitivamente que ya no
hay vuelta atrs en el ambiente artstico oficial del Estado nacionalsocialista. En la encrucijada del
ao 1937, Dix reconoce con franqueza la consecuencia de su aislamiento junto al lago de Cons-
tanza y, por primera vez desde su juventud, vuelve a recurrir a los grandes temas intemporales de
la Biblia y de los maestros antiguos. Con la adaptacin y reinterpretacin de arquetipos iconogr-
ficos del mito cristiano, y en ocasiones tambin de mitos de la Antigedad, el cronista de la metr-
poli y de la guerra desbroza el camino de vuelta para enfrentarse a las cuestiones existenciales del
ser humano. Traslada a sus nuevos hroes -Orfeo y Hrcules, San Cristbal y San Antonio, los
cuatro evangelistas y la Virgen Mara- a series desbordantes de dibujos, a menudo en varias ver-
siones pictricas. Aqu queda patente sobre todo una cosa: la preocupacin del artista de que los
temas del ser humano acaben resultndole extraos. As, planea, a largo plazo, series de cuadros
tomadas del inventario de aquella esfera que desde su infancia le resulta ms familiar: la mitolo-
ga cristiana.
Todava en 1937 La tentacin de San Antonio se convierte en autorretrato y alegora del artista-eremi-
ta en lucha con las tribulaciones del presente. Hacia 1938 comienza a trabajar en una serie de cuadros
de los cuatro evangelistas. Finalmente, en 1943 cristalizan rasgos fundamentales de un ciclo de Cris-
to: nacimiento, Cristo con la cruz a cuestas, crucifixin, resurreccin, que no continuar hasta la expre-
siva obra tarda y en otro plano de creacin de sentido.
Dix, que dice de s mismo: No soy cristiano, pues no puedo ni quiero cumplir la gran y esencial
exigencia, Seguidme, recoge de buen grado viejos temas, aparentemente gastados, porque
son comprensibles en el acto. La salvacin del mundo es el tema comprensiblemente oculto de
seis alegoras de gran formato de San Cristbal, ejecutadas entre 1938 y 1944. Ningn otro moti-
vo cristiano ocupa tan intensamente a Dix como la legendaria figura medieval pletrica de fuerza
del porteador de Cristo, que para l (segn una experiencia juvenil) responde al antiguo mito
heroico de Hrcules y que tiene en 1930 un precursor en su propia obra: Autorretrato con Jan
(cat. 19). Bajo el abrigo protector del smbolo cristiano, Dix presta referencias polticas de actua-
lidad al viejo tpico. Con el nio como encarnacin del logos, San Cristbal transporta la idea de
Occidente ms all de los peligros de la poca. Para el propio Dix esto es servir al ms fuerte:
al espritu.
26
27
O B R A S
LEOS
GUACHES
ACUARELAS
DIBUJOS
LEOS
En el destacado autorretrato de su obra temprana, Dix lanza por primera vez al observador su fiera
mirada. El humo brota de su boca y de las ventanas de la nariz: pausa para fumar un cigarrillo en el
estudio de Dresde. El joven pintor obstaculiza la visin de los resultados de su trabajo. A su espalda,
colgados de la pared, se distinguen, de modo esquemtico, los cuadros ms recientes: son todos del
ao 1913. Probablemente este autorretrato no surge hasta la primavera de 1914, estimulado por la
eclosin del expresionismo. La fecha de 1912 que figura arriba a la derecha la habra aadido Dix por
equivocacin cuando, en la ltima dcada de su vida, repar la esquina daada del cuadro.
Poco antes de la Primera Guerra Mundial, Dix, consciente de su vala en el dibujo y en la pintura, irrum-
pe como artista autnomo. Las imaginaciones delirantes del lector de Nietzsche se han convertido en
realidades artsticas palpables. El Autorretrato fumando ya no es un ensayo estilstico, un juego de
roles habitual, como lo eran los autorretratos de 1912 y 1913, sino que proclama la mismidad exis-
tencial: el desembarco en el presente con una variante personalsima del expresionismo. A la izquier-
da, su oreja roja es un homenaje al hroe de toda la generacin de artistas: Vincent van Gogh. A la
derecha, la neblina del cigarrillo asciende como un espritu salido de la botella. El fuego creativo reco-
rre palpitante el escenario del estudio: pintar es como inspirar y espirar. El pastoso caudal de pintura,
que pone en movimiento incluso los adornos de terciopelo del canap, genera contextos inusuales. El
humo que conforma el cuadro expulsado y absorbido puede ser interpretado como un signo de la
emanacin espiritual del fumador as como smbolo de inspiracin adivinatoria. En cualquier caso, este
nacimiento del artista del espritu dionisaco marca un giro en la obra de la poca de transicin. Dix
manifiesta aqu de manera inequvoca su pasin por el arte, que, en sentido nietzscheano, ya no
necesita demostracin alguna: se revela como gran estilo.
30
1. Autorretrato fumando,1914
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
Sin embargo, el tema del velo de viuda, con y sin viuda, en diferentes tc-
nicas y matices temticos, por el que Dix entre 1922 y 1925 siente autn-
tica pasin, revela tambin un aspecto de aguda actualidad. Desde el esta-
llido de la Primera Guerra Mundial, las prostitutas en Alemania utilizaban
la ertica de la viuda como macabra tctica de seduccin. Este sentido
ambivalente aguza la visin de Dix sobre la ambivalencia de la existen-
cia: s, eso tambin es un gusto por lo grotesco: En el mundo todo es
siempre dialctico! Los extremos se tocan!.
46
47
48
49
Me har famoso o me desacreditar. Dix hizo realidad su temprana profeca en ambos sentidos y
su prolfica obra abarca unos 500 autorretratos. Junto con Kthe Kollwitz, Lovis Corinth y Max Beck-
mann, es uno de los artistas modernos que se pas la vida siguiendo con escepticismo sus propias
huellas. En algunas obras pictricas fundamentales, Dix se presenta altivo con los atributos de su
profesin: bata de pintor o caballete, pincel y paleta... y siempre con la mirada escptica y penetran-
te dirigida a los distinguidos contemporneos que estn ante el cuadro.
En el punto culminante de su carrera, cuando en la metrpoli berlinesa se consagra como uno de los
protagonistas ms controvertidos del arte alemn del momento, Dix se muestra en el Autorretrato
con caballete de 1926 como espa y testigo principal de la era de Weimar. Su misin es poner al des-
cubierto y levantar acta de lo que sucede. Mirada furiosa y pincel afilado son los escalpelos con los
que el artista cirujano disecciona su poca.
Desde el punto de vista tcnico y psicolgico, el cuadro es una obra maestra del retratista de perso-
nas. Pura pintura al temple, finsimas veladuras, colores plidos, primaca del dibujo. Dix muestra sus
dotes artsticas con la mxima humildad. Slo l sabe que tambin ha fracasado esta vez en el rei-
terado intento de captar pictricamente el problema artstico de la inspiracin. El dibujo preparatorio,
a escala real, para el cuadro, denominado cartn y, en este caso, un secreto del estudio, lo muestra
con una musa a la espalda (fig. 4, pg. 12). Con aire hogareo, ella le coloca la mano sobre el hom-
bro para darle nimos. Pero el pintor renuncia a la figura, y se queda solo detrs del caballete. Al
comienzo de su breve perodo vital berlins, Dix muestra un autodominio frreo en este retrato ofi-
cial, en el que la bata de pintor es sustituida por el traje de etiqueta y la pajarita. De un modo que pasa
casi inadvertido, Dix cita a su modelo, Alberto Durero, con esa mano abierta bajo el pecho, que tam-
bin se atribuy ste en un autorretrato programtico realizado hacia 1500. Este gesto, con el que,
en los maestros alemanes antiguos, Cristo llama la atencin sobre su herida en el costado, se con-
vierte en estigma de los sufrimientos del artista por sus contemporneos.
50
51
52
53
54
55
17. Retrato del director general y Senador de Danzig Ludwig No, 1928
56
57
58
59
Nombrado en 1926 catedrtico de la Academia de Bellas Artes de Dresde, entre 1927 y 1933 Dix
vive uno de los perodos ms felices de su difcil biografa. Condiciones de vida burguesas, recono-
cimiento social como artista y una familia que crece con hijos queridos conforman el marco para una
profundizacin espiritual en la obra, y tambin para el apaciguamiento temtico, soluciones conven-
cionales y tonos conciliadores de finales de los salvajes aos veinte. En 1928 nace en Dresde Jan,
su hijo menor. Dos aos despus, Dix sienta al nio en su hombro y se autorretrata evocando una
imagen de 1927 muy grata a su memoria: cuando el corpulento poeta Theodor Dubler, durante una
visita a la casa de Dix en Dresde, coloc al beb Ursus sobre sus hombros. Aunque el artista sos-
tiene como siempre el pincel fino, en el autorretrato han cambiado muchas cosas: el pelo severa-
mente peinado hacia atrs ha sido sustituido por un peinado con flequillo, el escenario del estudio se
ha trasladado al aire libre, pecho y cabeza estn descubiertos con franqueza; hasta la mirada escp-
tica suscita una impresin de extraa hondura. En 1934 el artista se pinta con sus dos hijos delante
de un rbol; esta composicin tiene una construccin simtrica similar a la de una torre. A partir de
1937 esos acontecimientos personales se condensan en seis versiones en gran formato de San Cris-
tbal, con las que Dix simboliza la salvacin del mundo de la dictadura nacionalsocialista.
Sin duda, en el Autorretrato con Jan, de 1930, Dix adopta la pose del porteador de la vida. El braci-
to que saluda de su hijo de dos aos evoca el gesto de bendicin del Seor del universo, al que San
Cristbal salva de los peligros de la poca. l serva al ms fuerte, al espritu, comenta Dix en 1938
de un boceto con el porteador de Cristo. Ese mismo ao, en su exposicin en Zrich, confronta el auto-
rretrato con San Cristbal I. La crtica de arte de la poca reconoce de inmediato a San Cristbal-Dix
en la funcin simblica del Salvador. Acaso ya en 1930, tres aos antes de su anatema como dege-
nerado, proclam Dix con sabia previsin la salvacin del arte como una alegora de la pintura?
60
61
62
63
El ideal retrato doble del artista de Dresde Hans Theo Richter y su esposa Gisela data de 1933. El
triunfo del nacionalsocialismo supone para Dix un desplome biogrfico de consecuencias amenaza-
doras. Comprometido polticamente por sus cuadros de guerra y de prostitutas, es destituido de su
ctedra en la Academia de Bellas Artes de Dresde y difamado pblicamente, tachado de degenera-
do. Dix pierde las bases de su existencia artstica.
En el ltimo retrato de la era de la Repblica de Weimar el artista vuelve a alcanzar esa insistente agu-
deza de caracterizacin que hace aparecer el tipo social en el retrato privado y el cuadro de poca
en el retrato individual. Hans Theo Richter (19021969) fue desde 1928 a 1932 alumno de Dix en
Dresde. Despus de 1945 se convertira en uno de los dibujantes de la RDA ms respetados inter-
nacionalmente. Su primera mujer, Gisela, perdi la vida en el bombardeo de Dresde; su estudio fue
pasto de las llamas.
Dix monta ambas figuras del retrato en un paralelogramo afectivo: l, con la bata blanca de pintor, un
cordero inocente. Ella, entre ngel de las Musas y mujer serpiente, con la humildad de la Virgen y los
atractivos de Venus. La intimidad de la pareja culmina en el motivo de las manos entrelazadas (al
igual que en la romntica alegora de la amistad Germania e Italia de Friedrich Overbeck de
1811/1828). Con el doble retrato ante fondo dorado el artista construye una imagen opuesta al cri-
minal presente. Pero al mismo tiempo socava la idealidad del estado representado. La rigidez ico-
nogrfica significa prdida de dimensin espiritual. En el ao fatal de 1933, Dix testimonia con este
desencanto latente el ocaso de la poca que le desacredit y le hizo famoso.
21. Retrato del Pintor Hans Theo Richter y su esposa Gisela, 1933
64
65
66
67
A primera vista uno no da crdito a lo que ven sus ojos: empalagoso kitsch navideo con el croma-
tismo del tardogtico alemn Mathias Grnewald y composicin convencional inspirada en Rem-
brandt van Rijn, el gran maestro holands del siglo XVII. En el centro del cuadro, el ngel de la Anun-
ciacin seguido por los ejrcitos celestiales; en primer plano, los pastores con su rebao en el monte
Koppenplan, alegres y excitados por el no temis.
Pero contemplado con ms detenimiento, Dix desconcierta con su gusto por las distorsiones y la dis-
cordancia estridente, que, en el punto culminante de la Segunda Guerra Mundial, convierten el cua-
dro en un documento perturbador. El descenso de los ngeles desde el cielo ardiente desata la con-
fusin al chocar con el mundo sombro: la mano con la que saluda el ngel, de un tono cadavrico,
est levantada en una especie de gesto de defensa; sus ayudantes se vuelven con terror pnico; la
nube se convierte en un alud, la promesa divina cae sobre las personas como una fuerza de la natu-
raleza. Dix parece querer sealar la impotencia de la Buena Nueva: Paz en la Tierra.
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El pintor encuentra en Job, el gran hombre resignado del Antiguo Testamento, una figura ejemplar y
trgica y un smbolo dolorosamente actual de culpa y expiacin en un mundo destruido. Dix consi-
dera el destino del opulento hombre de Ur, que soporta con humildad los satnicos golpes del desti-
no y la burla de los amigos, un smbolo de la situacin en Alemania despus de la guerra mundial y
la dictadura de Hitler. El pintor muestra a Job en la ltima fase de su humillacin y soledad: pelado
al rape y atacado por la lepra, yace con un pedazo de vidrio en la mano ante las ruinas de su casa.
Las vigas de sta recuerdan a una cruz gamada, smbolo del Estado nacionalsocialista y gravitan
peligrosamente sobre la escena. Job, sin embargo, dirige sus confiados ojos azules hacia lo alto,
hacia un dios bondadoso. Mantenindose firme en la afliccin, resistiendo la iniquidad y el sufrimiento,
Job acepta su destino con confianza. Al fondo brota el verdor.
Con la expresiva reinterpretacin de la iconografa cristiana, y tras la inseguridad existencial, Dix vuel-
ve a garantizarse una realidad transformada a nivel metafrico. Con el lenguaje formal de su expre-
sionismo verista de posguerra plasma imgenes de su poca de enorme agudeza y densidad expre-
siva. Su Job no es nicamente lamento, sino que plantea la cuestin de la responsabilidad y dignidad
del individuo.
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El ltimo autorretrato de su obra pictrica alberga una novedad: por primera y ltima vez Dix aban-
dona la mirada furiosa y amarga sobre la situacin de la conciencia de su poca y se permite una son-
risa. Con sus grandes manos toscas (una de ellas con seis dedos) estrecha contra s a su nieta Mar-
cella, la hija de su vstago Jan. En comparacin con la figura oscura, llena de surcos, del viejo pintor,
la luminosa pequea de cabellos de oro parece una hoja en blanco del libro del destino, un smbolo
de la vida futura. Junto a la desigual pareja, encuadrndola, crece una vid, el rbol de la vida. El fon-
do abierto del cuadro es de un soleado amarillo, animado y esperanzador.
Dix recoge el motivo de una fotografa en blanco y negro tomada por Stefan Moses cinco aos antes
en el jardn de la casa del artista a orillas del lago de Constanza. El famoso fotgrafo de Munich rea-
liz en los aos sesenta numerosas series de retratos de artistas, escritores y msicos importantes.
En 1964 visit a Dix en su estudio de Hemmenhofen. Tres aos ms tarde, el pintor sufre su primer
ataque de apopleja. Despus, la autorreflexin pictrica vuelve a ganar peso. En el torbellino crea-
dor, Dix supera sus sntomas de parlisis y plasma su legado en leos, estampas y dibujos.
El tema de Marcella se utiliza tambin en dos litografas. Pero es sobre todo en este cuadro donde
Dix logra una ltima expresin vlida de su temtica vital, con la moderacin que proporciona la sabi-
dura de la vejez. En la frontera de la muerte, l parece reconciliarse aqu, por una sola vez, con la
dialctica existencial del florecer y marchitarse, de Eros y Tnatos... quiz.
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GUACHES Y ACUARELAS
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DIBUJOS
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M E T R P O L I S
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Cinco aos antes que Max Beckmann, Dix convierte el trptico religioso en escenario de una
noche calamitosa en la metrpoli. El realismo de la metrpoli berlinesa, la pintura del distancia-
miento, alcanza su apogeo en 1928. Es un homenaje a Berln desde un punto de vista negativo.
(Eberhard Roters). Esta pintura se considera hoy un icono de los dorados veinte y sus abismos.
Con ella Dix se inscribe en la historia del arte del siglo XX como intrprete ambivalente de la era
comprendida entre la revolucin y la reaccin.
En la pieza central del trptico palpita el barullo nocturno de un dancing bar a los ritmos clidos de
una banda de swing y de jazz. Sobre el parqu, reluciente como un espejo, se baila el shimmy o
el charlestn (Dix, consumado bailarn, sabe exactamente lo que pinta). Se est completamente
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up to date. Impera el entusiasmo por Amrica. El pbli- con un esquema compositivo clsico: tres grupos de figuras, tres segmentos de pared, tres pla-
co de la alta burguesa y de los ambientes mundanos nos espaciales. En conjunto, la parte central es exactamente el doble de ancha que las dos late-
lleva una vida de elegancia y de lujo. El pintor no aho- rales que la flanquean y que de manera anloga a un retablo medieval podran ocultar por ente-
rra esfuerzos ni modas. Una fiesta para los ojos: chiffn ro el escenario del dancing bar. Aqu se muestra la cara oscura de los dorados aos veinte.
y plisados, encajes y pieles, abanicos de plumas y apli- Mientras dentro se divierte la buena sociedad, fuera dos series de prostitutas desfilan ante la puer-
ques de lentejuelas, joyas y zapatos de formas y colo- ta por delante de mutilados de guerra: en la parte izquierda, una comitiva de ajadas putas de arra-
res fantsticos. La pesada tela de brocado de la dere- bal; en la derecha, una cascada de elegantes meretrices emperifolladas.
cha est bordada con pan de oro; las medias de seda y
el collar de perlas compiten en esplendor; el cromatis- A un lado: suciedad de albaal bajo el arco de un puente, estacin final para superfluos soldados
mo rojo llamea en todas las tonalidades. repatriados; slo la clida luz roja del fondo augura la patria, un burdel. All una rubia llamativa con
manos como garras y una dura mirada de desprecio lanzada hacia atrs se burla de la lascivia de
La presentacin de los personajes es ejemplar: banda de un mutilado de guerra sentado al que Dix ha investido con sus propios rasgos. Al otro lado, una
jazz y pareja de bailarines en accin, lonely girls con extravagante comparsa de damas disfrazadas pertenecientes al oficio ms viejo del mundo pasa
aspecto de emancipadas y mirones que pagan proceden- ante un mutilado de guerra sentado cuyo saludo militar queda sin respuesta; mgico relampagueo
tes del medio industrial y de los logreros de la guerra. ante una arquitectura fantstica neobarroca que es un decorado vaco. En ninguna otra parte se
Pero no hay que creer a pie juntillas en esta hermosa apa- perciben con ms fuerza las contradicciones del cuadro que en la comparacin entre las desta-
riencia; el espectculo tiene dobles fondos y carece de cadas piernas de las putas o de los bailarines y las prtesis y muones de los mutilados.
final feliz. La mmica y gestualidad de los cinco msicos
de la banda situados a la izquierda no slo traslucen el En su trptico Dix cambia de estilo y de ambiente como en una pelcula. Ms tarde mencionar
dinamismo del jazz, sino tambin un pnico subliminal. como estmulo intelectual la novela Ulises de James Joyce, que acaba de publicarse en alemn.
Los brillantes instrumentos de latn se vuelven con avidez Montaje, corte y cita son sus mtodos pictricos. Simultaneidad y dinamismo, representacin del
hacia el pblico femenino; los saxofones, tuba y trombn sincronismo de lo asincrnico, confluencia entre presente e historia sus intenciones artsticas. El
parecen ventosas. El negro que toca el tambor al fondo es trptico es como un palimpsesto de estratos significantes superpuestos. La voluntad verista de
empalado por cuatro inexplicables tubos de metal (ins- constatacin es contrarrestada con secuencias surreales; los incrementos mitomanacos topan
trumento o decoracin?): grito primigenio dirigido hacia el con la autoirona privada; el diagnstico crtico social aparece en el cromatismo y contornos de los
cielo. Los dos bailarines de charlestn de miembros con- grandes maestros alemanes entre el gtico tardo y el Renacimiento. Con irritantes citas temti-
torsionados y mmica rgida parecen marionetas colgadas cas y desplazamientos pardicos de significado, Dix se apropia de su tiempo y, a la par, de las ra-
de los hilos; el hombre plido vestido de esmoquin est ces legitimadoras de su propio quehacer. En cualquier caso, para m lo innovador en la pintura
petrificado como si estuviera bajo la influencia de las dro- consiste en ampliar el mbito temtico, en incrementar las formas expresivas que en esencia ya
gas. Al lado, dos alas plisadas se arrugan hacia el suelo existen en los maestros antiguos, declara en 1927, mientras trabaja en el trptico. De todos
igual que una cascada, as la extravagante ave del para- modos, para m el objeto seguir siendo lo esencial, pues tan slo el objeto configura la forma ...
so con pelo cortado a lo garon parece un ngel cado; ni Para m, por tanto, es ms importante el qu que el cmo. Slo a partir del qu se desarrolla el
el broche de mariposa sobre el transparente traje de cc- cmo (...). El arte verdadero siempre se esforzar por abrir posibilidades expresivas que desbor-
tel ni el victorioso agitarse del abanico de plumas de bri- den el nivel de lo cotidiano.
llante color rosa pueden frenar esa cada a los infiernos.
En comparacin, la pareja de nuevos ricos que nadan en Los historiadores del arte han descubierto numerosos aspectos ocultos en la metrpolis de Dix:
lujo, grasa y seguridad en s mismos, sentados bien ape- retablos del gtico tardo del centro y el sur de Alemania nos ofrecen modelos para la figura y el
gados a la tierra en la mesa de la derecha, parecen gozar movimiento de los personajes principales de los laterales y para la resbaladiza y declinante sen-
de una salud casi enfermiza. sacin espacial. Los cambios cromticos recuerdan a Hans Baldung Grien. El porte de la mujer
guarnecida de pieles del ala derecha est tomado del famoso autorretrato de Alberto Durero de
El pintor refrena la opulencia voluptuosa y exaltada de 1500 (Alte Pinakothek, Munich). Durero por su parte, consciente de su propia vala, se haba pin-
esta danza en el crter del volcn tpica de la poca tado con rasgos parecidos a los de Cristo, citando la iconografa del varn de dolores que seala
131 132
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up to date. Impera el entusiasmo por Amrica. El pbli- con un esquema compositivo clsico: tres grupos de figuras, tres segmentos de pared, tres pla-
co de la alta burguesa y de los ambientes mundanos nos espaciales. En conjunto, la parte central es exactamente el doble de ancha que las dos late-
lleva una vida de elegancia y de lujo. El pintor no aho- rales que la flanquean y que de manera anloga a un retablo medieval podran ocultar por ente-
rra esfuerzos ni modas. Una fiesta para los ojos: chiffn ro el escenario del dancing bar. Aqu se muestra la cara oscura de los dorados aos veinte.
y plisados, encajes y pieles, abanicos de plumas y apli- Mientras dentro se divierte la buena sociedad, fuera dos series de prostitutas desfilan ante la puer-
ques de lentejuelas, joyas y zapatos de formas y colo- ta por delante de mutilados de guerra: en la parte izquierda, una comitiva de ajadas putas de arra-
res fantsticos. La pesada tela de brocado de la dere- bal; en la derecha, una cascada de elegantes meretrices emperifolladas.
cha est bordada con pan de oro; las medias de seda y
el collar de perlas compiten en esplendor; el cromatis- A un lado: suciedad de albaal bajo el arco de un puente, estacin final para superfluos soldados
mo rojo llamea en todas las tonalidades. repatriados; slo la clida luz roja del fondo augura la patria, un burdel. All una rubia llamativa con
manos como garras y una dura mirada de desprecio lanzada hacia atrs se burla de la lascivia de
La presentacin de los personajes es ejemplar: banda de un mutilado de guerra sentado al que Dix ha investido con sus propios rasgos. Al otro lado, una
jazz y pareja de bailarines en accin, lonely girls con extravagante comparsa de damas disfrazadas pertenecientes al oficio ms viejo del mundo pasa
aspecto de emancipadas y mirones que pagan proceden- ante un mutilado de guerra sentado cuyo saludo militar queda sin respuesta; mgico relampagueo
tes del medio industrial y de los logreros de la guerra. ante una arquitectura fantstica neobarroca que es un decorado vaco. En ninguna otra parte se
Pero no hay que creer a pie juntillas en esta hermosa apa- perciben con ms fuerza las contradicciones del cuadro que en la comparacin entre las desta-
riencia; el espectculo tiene dobles fondos y carece de cadas piernas de las putas o de los bailarines y las prtesis y muones de los mutilados.
final feliz. La mmica y gestualidad de los cinco msicos
de la banda situados a la izquierda no slo traslucen el En su trptico Dix cambia de estilo y de ambiente como en una pelcula. Ms tarde mencionar
dinamismo del jazz, sino tambin un pnico subliminal. como estmulo intelectual la novela Ulises de James Joyce, que acaba de publicarse en alemn.
Los brillantes instrumentos de latn se vuelven con avidez Montaje, corte y cita son sus mtodos pictricos. Simultaneidad y dinamismo, representacin del
hacia el pblico femenino; los saxofones, tuba y trombn sincronismo de lo asincrnico, confluencia entre presente e historia sus intenciones artsticas. El
parecen ventosas. El negro que toca el tambor al fondo es trptico es como un palimpsesto de estratos significantes superpuestos. La voluntad verista de
empalado por cuatro inexplicables tubos de metal (ins- constatacin es contrarrestada con secuencias surreales; los incrementos mitomanacos topan
trumento o decoracin?): grito primigenio dirigido hacia el con la autoirona privada; el diagnstico crtico social aparece en el cromatismo y contornos de los
cielo. Los dos bailarines de charlestn de miembros con- grandes maestros alemanes entre el gtico tardo y el Renacimiento. Con irritantes citas temti-
torsionados y mmica rgida parecen marionetas colgadas cas y desplazamientos pardicos de significado, Dix se apropia de su tiempo y, a la par, de las ra-
de los hilos; el hombre plido vestido de esmoquin est ces legitimadoras de su propio quehacer. En cualquier caso, para m lo innovador en la pintura
petrificado como si estuviera bajo la influencia de las dro- consiste en ampliar el mbito temtico, en incrementar las formas expresivas que en esencia ya
gas. Al lado, dos alas plisadas se arrugan hacia el suelo existen en los maestros antiguos, declara en 1927, mientras trabaja en el trptico. De todos
igual que una cascada, as la extravagante ave del para- modos, para m el objeto seguir siendo lo esencial, pues tan slo el objeto configura la forma ...
so con pelo cortado a lo garon parece un ngel cado; ni Para m, por tanto, es ms importante el qu que el cmo. Slo a partir del qu se desarrolla el
el broche de mariposa sobre el transparente traje de cc- cmo (...). El arte verdadero siempre se esforzar por abrir posibilidades expresivas que desbor-
tel ni el victorioso agitarse del abanico de plumas de bri- den el nivel de lo cotidiano.
llante color rosa pueden frenar esa cada a los infiernos.
En comparacin, la pareja de nuevos ricos que nadan en Los historiadores del arte han descubierto numerosos aspectos ocultos en la metrpolis de Dix:
lujo, grasa y seguridad en s mismos, sentados bien ape- retablos del gtico tardo del centro y el sur de Alemania nos ofrecen modelos para la figura y el
gados a la tierra en la mesa de la derecha, parecen gozar movimiento de los personajes principales de los laterales y para la resbaladiza y declinante sen-
de una salud casi enfermiza. sacin espacial. Los cambios cromticos recuerdan a Hans Baldung Grien. El porte de la mujer
guarnecida de pieles del ala derecha est tomado del famoso autorretrato de Alberto Durero de
El pintor refrena la opulencia voluptuosa y exaltada de 1500 (Alte Pinakothek, Munich). Durero por su parte, consciente de su propia vala, se haba pin-
esta danza en el crter del volcn tpica de la poca tado con rasgos parecidos a los de Cristo, citando la iconografa del varn de dolores que seala
131 132
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la herida de su costado. Esto supone un desplazamiento latente del significado de la vagina que
se abre en las ropas rojas de la prostituta como atributo de su profesin a la herida en el cuerpo
pblico de la sociedad.
Como catedrtico de la Academia recin elegido Dix se encuentra sometido en Dresde a una gran
presin. Tiene que suministrar el estmulo decisivo para un Renacimiento en el panorama de una
ciudad tan rica en tradicin artstica. Al verlo uno recordaba a Cranach, escribe Will Grohmann
sobre su nombramiento. (Lucas Cranach fue pintor de corte del prncipe elector de Sajonia a prin-
cipios del siglo XVI). La idea para un cuadro de la metrpolis de gran formato se la trajo de Berln.
En Dresde el pintor vara su concepcin. La nueva metrpolis para la exposicin del centenario
del Crculo de Bellas Artes de Sajonia la concibe Dix con mayores pretensiones, como manifes-
tacin de su podero artstico, El club nocturno berlins, con personal annimo y una alegora del
destino con la figura de Fortuna sobre un globo terrqueo, se convierte en una sociedad de nota-
bles de Dresde completamente terrenal. No pocas figuras han sido consideradas retratos de con-
temporneos (Birgit Schwarz): adems de Martha, la esposa del artista, como bailarina, y su
amigo artista Gert Wollheim como violinista, aparecen representando a la alta sociedad de Dresde
el arquitecto Wilhelm Kreis, el abogado Fritz Glaser y, sobre todo, Alfred Schulze, director gene-
ral de la Administracin sajona, como saxofonista.
Aqu no hay sitio para la diosa Fortuna que Dix tuvo presente en los bocetos hacia 1925/1926. En
cambio, intensifica su voluntad de sntesis. El eidtico compila la compleja configuracin del cua-
dro no slo a partir de su propio repertorio temtico crtico con su poca, sino tambin del inven-
tario de principios esenciales de los antiguos maestros y de imgenes sepultadas en la memoria.
Como pintor se considera sucesor de un arte especficamente alemn, que aspira a ser realista y
mtico en igual medida, una fusin de mundo y espritu.
Cuando el trptico Metrpolis se presenta por primera vez en el verano de 1928 bajo el lema pro-
gramtico Arte sajn de nuestro tiempo, Dix se ve confirmado, en la tradicin de Lucas Cranach,
como moderno pintor de corte de Sajonia. Con el trptico Metrpolis se acredita como represen-
tante destacado de una modernidad reflexiva que opone al imperativo de la innovacin y origina-
lidad de los ismos un porfiado trabajo de la memoria. El centro de su retablo ya no lo ocupa la
Epifana, sino el vrtigo y el horror de la gran ciudad. El trptico de Dix es una moderna danza de
la muerte, dedicada como memento mori a sus queridos contemporneos.
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84. Busto de una joven con la cabeza ligeramente inclinada en perfil de 3/4 a la izquierda, 1934
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D O C U M E N T O S
De acuerdo con su mxima "pintor: pinta y calla", Otto Dix, a diferencia de muchos de sus contempor-
neos, apenas escribi: "() mis cuadros constituyen las declaraciones ms francas ... Quien tenga ojos
para ver, que vea!". Sin embargo, nos ha parecido interesante presentar, traducidos por primera vez al
espaol, tres textos de Otto Dix: una "autobiografa manuscrita" redactada en 1924 (I); unas brevsimas
"memorias" redactadas en 1966 (II), y (III) las respuestas a las preguntas que Otto Dix quiso contestar de
un cuestionario titulado "Preguntas y respuestas sobre arte moderno" que le fue enviado por Lajos Kassk
en 1958 con destino a un libro sobre arte moderno.
I
Autobiografa manuscrita
(1924)
Desde los catorce a los dieciocho aos aprend a ser "pintor decorador", es decir,
aprend a limpiar gallineros, a rascar techos y paredes, a moler colores, pintar sue-
los, vallas y zcalos y a limpiar botas como es debido.
Los domingos sala a pintar paisajes. Pero como me pasaba la semana esperando al
domingo, el pobre maestro sola darme tirones de orejas, que hoy an tengo muy
separadas de la cabeza y hacen mal efecto. "No llegars a nada, t nunca sers pin-
tor, siempre sers un pintamonas, cmprate un teckel y una chaqueta de terciopelo
y hazte artista", me deca siempre.
En 1919 retorn a Dresde, donde se segua pintando con camo seco, azcar y
agua. En la Academia de Bellas Artes de Dresde, con Feldbauer, provoqu en la clase
de pintura una autntica epidemia cubista. Ms tarde en el Meisteratelier [Taller de
maestra en pintura decorativa] de Gussmann, donde ya para espanto ya para satis-
faccin de mi maestro creaba cuadros de tela, chapa, madera, movibles, articulados
y plegables...
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II
Memorias
(1966)
A veces tena que posar como modelo en casa de mi primo Fritz Amann, que era pin-
tor. El maravilloso aroma de las pinturas al leo y de los barnices mezclado con el olor
al humo de tabaco que sala de la pipa del primo, amn de los hermosos colores de la
paleta, despertaron en m, siendo an nio, el deseo de hacerme pintor. A lo mejor es
que el sentido del olfato es mucho ms elemental que el de la vista, el sentido primi-
genio, si se me permite la expresin.
Siempre he sabido pintar sin modelos, pero, como es natural, le debo mucho a mi
viejo maestro Schunke, que me condujo a la libertad creativa. Slo ms tarde, en la
Escuela de Artes y Oficios, asum de modo totalmente voluntario el duro aprendizaje,
despus de haber escapado de la amarga obligacin de aprender el oficio de pintor
con el seor Senff. "Nunca sers pintor, siempre sers un pintamonas!", fue su sen-
tencioso juicio sobre m."
[Otto Dix, texto para el catlogo de la exposicin Otto Dix (Gera, 1966)]
146
III
"Preguntas y respuestas sobre arte moderno"
1958
25.6.1958
Atentamente,
(Kassk)
24.7.1958
Atentamente,
(Otto Dix)
147
Comienza a trabajar con un plan cerrado o deja que la obra vaya configurndose
durante el trabajo? Cabe extraer de uno u otro mtodo una consecuencia de validez
decisiva?
Yo trazo un plan (esbozo), pero, a pesar de ello, el cuadro se configura luego por s
mismo durante el trabajo.
Parte de la opinin pblica acusa al arte moderno de ser "formalista" y decadente. Est
de acuerdo con esta opinin? En caso contrario, por qu razones la rechaza?
Considero que los colores puros y la forma pura propias del arte abstracto son un
formalismo.
Cree que existe alguna relacin entre el cambio de la cosmovisin cientfica y los
afanes del arte moderno?
Para m el sol todava sigue saliendo.
Qu aconseja a los jvenes artistas: deben dedicarse con mayor ahnco a las obras
maestras o a la naturaleza?
Los artistas jvenes deben ocuparse con ahnco de la naturaleza y
de las grandes obras del arte.
148
No cree que el afn por una excesiva "pureza" artesanal esteriliza la obra, que la
disposicin rigurosa de la superficie aniquila las fuerzas dinmicas encerradas en la
obra?
El buen oficio forma parte del arte, pero la bsqueda de efectos superficiales
siempre novedosos es una hipertrofia.
[Otto Dix/Lajos Kassk, "Fragen und Antworten zur Modernen Kunst", en Ulrike Lorenz, Welt & Sinnlichkeit.
Otto Dix (Regensburg, 2005), pg. 118]
149
B I O G R A F A
152
Realista, expresionista, dadasta, maestro antiguo, pintor a la moda y eclctico, obseso de la constatacin
y visionario, moralista o cnico... todo esto y mucho ms fue Otto Dix. Celebrado como acontecimiento fun-
damental, calificado de pintor reaccionario de temas oscuros, desacreditado como inventor de obsce-
nidades contrarias a la moral; l mismo se autocalific de proletario soberano.
A lo largo de su vida, Dix atraves casi todas las etapas del siglo de los ismos. Crecido en el seno de una
familia obrera en las postrimeras del Imperio Alemn, en la Primera Guerra Mundial formul su autodefinicin
como artista: El que tiene el valor de decir s. El ascenso y la cada de la Repblica de Weimar lo acompa-
aron en sus primeros pasos en Dsseldorf y en el punto culminante de su carrera en Berln y Dresde. Bajo
la dictadura del nacionalsocialismo fue difamado y calificado de artista degenerado, y se retir al lago de
Constanza. Tras la Segunda Guerra Mundial, la divisin de Europa se convirti para l en una carga privada,
pero tambin en estmulo para llevar una singular existencia de artista de las dos Alemanias.
Como hombre realista, Dix siempre fue ambas cosas: contemporneo y testigo de su tiempo, afectado y obser-
vador. Sus cuadros son espejos y comentario a la vez. Dix elabor y plasm en ellos sus propias experiencias
sobre la guerra y la gran ciudad y sobre todo sus vivencias contradictorias con personas de todo el espectro
social en situaciones extremas. En cuanto pintor, confiaba en lo visible... y en su aguda mirada: Ver solamen-
te lo que est ah, lo externo. Lo interno se manifiesta por s mismo. Dix toma la palabra a la apariencia, la des-
figura hasta el borde de la reconocibilidad y la desenmascara como un contrasentido o engao... no sin un gus-
to por lo grotesco. Sus retratos reflejan a la perfeccin el carcter del retratado. Sus grandes composiciones
constituyen un diagnstico implacable de su poca.
No es de extraar. Durante toda su vida el artista se vio entre dos aguas.
Su obra fue contemplada y valorada siempre desde ngulos opuestos:
por la derecha y por la izquierda, en el Este y en el Oeste. Lo alabaron y
lo malinterpretaron, lo condenaron y aniquilaron. Hoy, Dix es considera-
do uno de los ms relevantes artistas alemanes del siglo XX. Su realis-
mo comprometido y ambivalente continuar siendo explosivo.
153
Los padres
Dix mantendr durante toda su vida una
relacin cariosa con sus progenitores. La
lucha, profundamente vivida, por el susten-
to cotidiano, el compromiso social, el ham-
bre de cultura y la estrecha relacin con la
naturaleza son de una importancia capital
en su vida y en su obra. El joven experi-
menta las primeras vivencias artsticas en
el seno de la extensa familia de su madre,
aficionada a las artes. Fritz Lffler, bigrafo
de Dix, atribuye la otra faceta, la implaca-
ble captacin de la realidad, la acometida
del objeto a la herencia paterna, al igual
Retratos de los padres de Otto Dix: Franz y Louise, 1926. Fotografa de Hugo Erfurth.
que sus ojos claros y penetrantes.
154
pintor de interiores, responde en 1906 la oficina del mayordomo mayor. Dix realiza, pues, durante cuatro
aos, un implacable aprendizaje artesanal en la empresa Carl Senff de Gera. En su tiempo libre pasa de
la sobria representacin naturalista al romanticismo jugendstiliano. Pero en otoo de 1910 el oficial pintor
recibe al fin una pequea beca del prncipe y parte hacia Dresde.
Recuerdos vitales
Nac el 2 de diciembre de 1891 a la una y media de la
madrugada (para ser exacto) en Untermhaus, cerca de
Gera, que no est situada en Sajonia, como afirman algu-
nas personas, sino en Turingia. Mi padre es fundidor y
moldeador. Mi madre es absolutamente genial y desbor-
da fantasa y as lo demuestra el hecho de que reciente-
mente prepar un bizcocho con albayalde en lugar de
harina, que provoc a mis padres un clico durante algu-
nos das. Acud a la escuela de Untermhaus, tuve pape-
ras, jugu a indios, escenifiqu pequeos incendios fores-
tales, pero esto seguramente no tendr mayor inters.
Autorretrato con gladiolos
rojos, 1913, leo, paradero Desde los catorce a los dieciocho aos aprend pintor
desconocido. decorador, es decir, aprend a limpiar gallineros, a rascar
techos y paredes, a moler los colores, a pintar suelos, vallas
II. Despertar intelectual en Dresde: y zcalos y a limpiar botas como es debido. Los domingos
Entre las artes aplicadas y la vanguardia sala a pintar paisajes. Pero como me pasaba la semana
esperando al domingo, el pobre maestro sola darme tirones
1910 1914
de orejas, que hoy an tengo muy separadas de la cabeza
Pero yo confo y trabajo y me digo: Tienes que lle- y hacen mal efecto. No llegars a nada, t nunca sers pin-
gar a ser algo grande. tor, siempre sers un pintamonas, cmprate un teckel y una
chaqueta de terciopelo y hazte artista, me deca siempre.
El prncipe Reuss me concedi una beca y me march a la
Despedida de la patria Escuela de Artes y Oficios de Dresde. All aprend a pintar flo-
T nunca sers pintor, siempre sers un pintamonas!. res, a dibujar plantas, anatoma y desnudo. Pasaba mucha
hambre, porque los principescos 50 M[arcos] de Reuss no
Con este veredicto, en 1910 el maestro pintor Senff lan-
daban para mucho. En ago[sto] de 1914 fui llamado a filas.
za a su oficial Dix al mundo, que en un primer momen- En 1919 retorn a Dresde, donde se segua pintando con
to es Dresde. Aqu el hijo de obreros de Turingia orien- camo seco, azcar y agua. En la Academia de Bellas
Artes de Dresde, con Feldbauer, provoqu en la clase de
tal recibe inspiraciones insospechadas. Dresde se
pintura una autntica epidemia cubista. Ms tarde en el
convierte en su segunda patria y en el punto de partida Meisteratelier [Taller de maestra de pintura decorativa]
para su existencia autnoma como artista. El legenda- de Gussmann, donde ya para espanto, ya para satisfac-
cin de mi maestro creaba cuadros de tela, chapa, made-
rio escenario barroco de la metrpoli sajona emplaza-
ra, movibles, articulados y plegables...
da a orillas del Elba y su famosa coleccin de pintura, Tan slo aadir que no soy ni poltico, ni tendencioso, ni
experiencias visuales inimaginables en las galeras van- pacifista, ni moralista, ni lo que sea. Tampoco soy sim-
bolista, ni un pintor afrancesado. No estoy a favor ni en
guardistas y fructferos vnculos de amistad caracteri-
contra de nada.
zan los primeros aos de despertar intelectual. [Otto Dix, biografa manuscrita, hacia 1924, propiedad particular].
El duro aprendizaje
Dix comienza su carrera artstica en la Real Escuela de Artes y Oficios de Dresde. En realidad, all conti-
nan su formacin los artesanos con talento. Sin embargo, la combinacin de aprendizaje y vida con refor-
mas pedaggicas y contemplacin de la naturaleza conforma el suelo nutricio para el despliegue de la
modernidad. De las Escuelas de Artes y Oficios salen los mejores artistas alemanes del siglo XX.
Nota:
Los apartados que figuran en rojo corresponden a testimonios autobiogrficos de Dix.
Los apartados que figuran en azul corresponden a testimonios de contemporneos de Dix.
155
Los primeros maestros de Dix son Max Rade, Richard Mebert (pintura ornamental y pintura del natu-
ral) y Johannes Trk (Dibujo de figuras). Desde la Pascua de 1912 acude a la clase de Pintura
decorativa figurativa de Richard Guhr, un conocido pintor y escultor de alegoras monumentales. De
la clase de Rade y Mebert surgen hacia 1912 magistrales y coloristas aguadas de plantas. Los ejer-
cicios con Guhr le inspiran estudios de desnudos de concisin dibujstica y una autenticidad no aca-
demicista.
Confesiones
Durante los primeros aos en Dresde Dix convierte a Hans Bretschneider, amigo de juventud de Gera, en
destinatario de confesiones de gran alcance que preludian la transformacin consciente del artesano en
artista. Pero sus cartas proporcionan tambin vvidas visiones de la vida cotidiana entre el duro aprendi-
zaje escolar y la vida amorosa, los principios del vegetarianismo, las lecturas de Nietzsche y otras expe-
riencias formativas.
156
157
ria del arte y la actualidad, ensaya todo cuanto aparece ante sus ojos. Con tesn y fuerza expresiva formula
ahora el arco en el que se mover su obra futura: entre el realismo a ultranza de los maestros antiguos y la
autorrenuncia expresionista. A partir de 1912 el descubrimiento de Van Gogh deja en su obra huellas de pas-
tosa agitacin y un incremento de la metfora. Desde el otoo de 1913 los apocalpticos paisajes urbanos de
Meidner, las quimricas visiones rficas de Robert Delaunay, las brutales impresiones de la pintura de Oskar
Kokoschka y el retrato psicologizante de Edvard Munch contribuyen al pluralismo estilstico inicial de Dix.
158
La experiencia blica to, que estaba a la entrada, le atraves los tmpanos. Hay
Cara samideanino. Recib sus cartas y las cerezas y los que largarse! Me retiro algo ms hacia la izquierda, los
cigarrillos y se lo agradezco de todo corazn. Gracias a dems retroceden a la desbandada. En mi pequeo agu-
Dios han pasado los espantosos das del Somme. El da jero de tierra de 1 m. de alto y 2 de largo yac en compaa
12 nos reemplazaron los bvaros. Nuestra posicin esta- de un soldado de infantera durante horas bajo el fuego gra-
ba a la derecha del repetidamente mencionado pueblo de neado. Por la noche la situacin se calm y me retir.
Monacu. Nuestra compaa permaneci destinada all tres Los das siguientes fueron casi ms atroces. En conjunto
semanas y slo relevbamos a los nuestros cada 2 das. hemos perdido 12 ametralladoras, 2 de ellas han cado en
Las dos primeras jornadas de estancia de nuestro regi- poder de los franceses... Fuego a discrecin con obuses del
miento 102 transcurrieron con relativa calma. Nosotros 28 desde las diez y media de la maana hasta las nueve de
tenemos all todava 2 trincheras contiguas, naturalmente la noche. Las prdidas del regimiento son terribles. Por la
sin comunicacin mediante aproches. Yo todava estaba noche atac el enemigo. Por culpa de la niebla una batera
con otras 5 ametralladoras en la posicin tierra parda. dispar demasiado corto y acert a nuestra pendiente empi-
[Cuando] la segunda posicin del regimiento 102, por la nada. Horrible consternacin, prdidas espantosas, los cad-
noche, siguiendo la vieja costumbre, hubo ahondado las veres yacan tirados, los brazos y piernas volaban. La sexta
trincheras, los gabachos, que estaban en lo alto y podan compaa de este regimiento qued reducida a 9 hombres.
observarlo todo a las mil maravillas, empezaron el tercer Era una sensacin liberadora ver ascender los proyectiles
da a disparar fuego a discrecin con obuses del calibre 28, luminosos rojos (significa: el enemigo ataca) y avanzar y
a veces del 15 y calibres ms pequeos. Fue espantoso. La disparar nuestra ametralladora. Mas, de qu le sirven todos
posicin qued tan roturada, que no se vea trinchera algu- estos detalles? No puede imaginarse algo as. Ahora hemos
na. Yo estaba con mi ametralladora y mis hombres en una dejado atrs ese infierno y estamos en el pueblo de Mauvais.
galera minada. Nuestro chiribitil amenazaba con desplo- Tal vez pronto me den permiso. Ah fuera han quedado
marse a cada disparo. Cuando la situacin empeor, 3 de muchos buenos camaradas, lo siento por esos chicos.
mis hombres se retiraron. Entonces me qued slo con Muchos saludos via samideano Dix.
uno. Yo estaba decidido a no abandonar. De repente un [Otto Dix, carta por conducto militar a Helene Jakob, 1581916, pro-
obs del 28 nos lanza tanto barro al agujero que nos que- piedad particular].
damos hundidos hasta el pecho. La ametralladora estaba
enterrada, imposible desenterrarla con las prisas. As que
me largo, concretamente a la siguiente galera, ms a la
izquierda. El tiroteo comenz por la derecha. Y continu por
la izquierda. Pronto la ametralladora de la segunda galera
estuvo destruida por los disparos y al jefe del destacamen-
159
El recuerdo de la guerra
Por eso tuve que ir a la guerra. Y como joven que era, IV. Llegada a la realidad:
sabe usted, a uno le importa una mierda que estando en Pugnas artsticas en Dresde y Dsseldorf
el frente te sacudan o no. Da igual. Tengo que salir. No 1919 1924
tengo miedo. De joven s lo tuve. Claro est que luego,
cuando avanzas, cuando avanzabas despacio hasta el ...ver las cosas completamente desnudas,
frente, es decir a primera lnea, te encontrabas con un con claridad, casi sin arte
fuego graneado infernal, bueno... ahora uno se re..., pero
entonces se cagaba en los pantalones. Sin embargo, a
medida que avanzabas, menos miedo tenas. Cuando La irrupcin en el arte: Dresde
estabas en primersima lnea, el miedo desapareca. En A comienzos de 1919, Dix regresa a Dresde. Tiene
fin, todo esto son acontecimientos que yo necesitaba vivir 27 aos. Se acerca a pasos agigantados a su tar-
a toda costa. Tambin tena que vivir cmo de repente
uno cae a mi lado y... se acab: la bala le ha acertado de do despegue artstico. Ahora lo admite como alum-
lleno. Todo esto tena que vivirlo con suma exactitud. Lo no la Academia Estatal de Artes Plsticas. Sus
deseaba. As que no soy un pacifista. O quiz fui una per- catedrticos son los impresionistas tardos Max
sona curiosa. Necesitaba presenciarlo todo con mis pro-
pios ojos. Y es que soy un realista, sabe usted, que nece- Feldbauer y Otto Gussmann.
sita verlo todo con sus propios ojos para constatar que es Paralelamente Dix funda con Conrad Felixmller el
as... De modo que soy un realista. Tengo que verlo todo. grupo artstico de vanguardia Grupo de Secesin
Tengo que presenciar en persona todos los abismos
insondables de la vida. Por eso voy a la guerra. de Dresde 1919. Se presenta en pblico por pri-
[Otto Dix habla sobre arte, religin, guerra, disco, ErkerVerlag St. mera vez con perturbadora fuerza expresiva en
Gallen, 1963].
exposiciones y publicaciones. Pronto se convierte
160
en el terror nmero uno de los burgueses de Dresde. A travs de amigos artistas entabla contactos arts-
ticos y comerciales con Dsseldorf, Hannover, Praga y Berln. Tras la guerra mundial y a comienzos de la
Repblica de Weimar, Alemania vibra con los albores de una nueva poca cultural.
Dix pinta cuadros como en estado de
embriaguez. Despus de 1918 descubr
que todo eso lo domino. Slo necesito
echarlo fuera. Expresionismo, cubismo,
futurismo... Dix atraviesa los estilos a toda
velocidad hasta desembocar en 1920 en el
dadasmo. Al principio, la mujer, el emba-
razo, el parto son todava acontecimientos
csmicos de ardiente cromatismo. Des-
pus, en los cuadros resuenan sarcsticas
carcajadas dadastas. Los nuevos esce-
narios y protagonistas de Dix son por ente-
ro terrenales: la calle, el burdel, las barri-
cadas, los mutilados de guerra, las putas y
los asesinos sdicos. En una nueva etapa
Los mutilados de guerra
tras la guerra mundial, el pintor, durante (con autorretrato), 1920, leo,
una breve fase de orientacin, prueba posi- paradero desconocido.
161
Ilse Fischer: el dadasta (Otto Dix) voluntad fantica de aniquilacin de todo lo existente que
Tiene 30 aos. Su rostro germnico de corte anguloso se arremolina caticamente en su interior. Su arte alber-
est devastado, gris. Tiene la boca del hombre des- ga la posibilidad de la autorredencin. Aqu su resuelta
piadado e impulsivo, con el labio inferior muy adelan- voluntad despierta y, aunando las fuerzas opuestas, con-
tado y lneas profundamente marcadas alrededor de sigue una sntesis forzosamente clara. Alcanza entonces
las comisuras de la boca, los ojos grises del hombre la creacin positiva. Este es su camino a la grandeza
fro y analtico, la nariz finamente cortada del hombre cerrada y armoniosa.
sensible, la frente amplia, abombada sobre los ojos, [En: Das Junge Rheinland, n 9/10, Dsseldorf 1922 (muy abreviado),
del pensador desesperado, el pelo rubio y liso del ame- citado de Otto Dix, Catlogo de la exposicin en la Galerie Remmert &
Barth, Dsseldorf 1991, pgs. 521].
ricano. Sus musculosas manos de obrero estn des-
cuidadas, pues es proletario por nacimiento, por ins-
tinto, por rebelin. Odia a los burgueses, a los crculos
de intelectuales, amantes del arte y compradores de
arte a los que le han conducido su profesin y su vio-
lento afn de conocimiento depurado. Odia sus con-
venciones y formas sociales, por falaces; odia las
necesidades burguesas, por conducir al marasmo; odia
su afn de poseer, por egosta.
Y lo ataca todo, ciertamente sin sistematizacin alguna.
Con obstinada cavilacin se esfuerza por indagar el ver-
dadero motivo de todas las cosas que la casualidad acer-
ca a su razn y las tantea inquieto. Violenta e impulsiva-
mente se abalanza sobre el objeto da igual que sea
cosa o persona, elimina de un plumazo cualquier acce-
sorio ornamental, remueve con crueldad crtica las
Inauguracin de la primera feria internacional
hebras descubiertas, disgrega, despedaza y corta con la Dad en Berln, 1920.
voluptuosidad del asesino sdico todo lo que encuentra.
Y as como este ltimo se va de vaco, atrozmente des- La Radio-Dad-Dix, tarjeta postal a sus
encantado tras su accin, tambin l se encuentra al final padres, 2.11.1920.
ante cosas y personas, ante s mismo, desencantado, sin
esperanza. Comprendis ahora la atroz veracidad de
sus cuadros de crmenes sexuales?
Un esclavo de la apariencia reacciona por instinto al otro
sexo. No existe casi ninguna mujer que l no desee; no
por una desmesurada masculinidad, sino por la obse-
sin por conocerlas de raz. Al mismo tiempo todo lo
excntrico suscita en l ecos apasionados. Le gustan
las mujeres excntricas, los bailes excntricos, el arte
excntrico. Su forma de vida es excntrica. Tiene per-
odos de actividad frentica en los que trabaja horas y
horas en el estudio, y despus puede vagar de un lado
a otro durante das, semanas, con un aspecto desali-
ado, o posedo por una vanidad pueril, preocupado por
su traje, por su peinado.
Esos estados de lasitud le desagradan. Porque slo se
siente plenamente feliz mientras trabaja. Por regla gene-
ral llega todas las maanas hacia las nueve a su estudio
y trabaja hasta las cinco de la tarde con una breve pau-
sa para comer. Mientras pinta o dibuja, no habla. Obser-
va fijamente con vida frialdad. Su rostro adopta incons-
cientemente las tensiones musculares del modelo. Le Cartel para la primera feria internacional Dad en Berln, 1920:
trae sin cuidado quin se sienta ante l. Slo ve el entre- Qu es dad?
Un arte? Una filosofa? Una poltica?
cruzamiento de lneas, el contraste y armona de luces y
Un seguro contra incendios?
colores, la expansin en el espacio de lo concreto. l se O: una religin de Estado?
esfuerza por reproducirlo con pulcritud artesanal, con es dad verdadera energa?
despiadada objetividad. o no es nada en absoluto, es decir,
todo?
En eterno desequilibrio, pasa de un extremo a otro, inca-
paz de llevar un ritmo de vida sano, posedo por una
162
Escndalo y xito
Escenario, la Juryfreie Kunstschau celebrada en Berln en 1922: La poli-
ca confisca el cuadro de Dix Muchacha ante el espejo. En junio del ao
siguiente comienza el proceso contra el pintor. La denuncia lo acusa de
obscenidad. El marchante de Colonia Karl Nierendorf y los reputados pin-
tores Karl Hofer y Max Slevogt defienden como peritos los intereses del artis-
ta. La flor y nata de la crtica de arte berlinesa sube al estrado de los testi-
gos. El proceso concluye en junio de 1923 con la absolucin del artista. Al
explicar que haba querido pintar un cuadro admonitorio, Dix atribuye, con
xito, una intencin moralizadora a su indiferente representacin de la cadu-
cidad de la vida. En otoo de ese mismo ao, en un segundo proceso en
Darmstadt, Dix es nuevamente absuelto de la acusacin de pornografa por
Otto Dix, hacia 1920.
Saln II.
Los procesos por pornografa garantizan a Dix la atencin de la opinin
pblica y fuerzan su debut en la metrpoli berlinesa. A comienzos de 1923, la galera de arte Graphisches
Kabinett I.B. Neumann presenta su primera exposicin individual. En abril, Max Liebermann invita al joven
pintor a participar en la Exposicin de Primavera de la Academia Prusiana de las Artes. Esto significa
entrar en el crculo de los establecidos. Dix est maduro para la academia mientras la fiscala convierte
su pintura en un crimen, constata Karl Scheffler.
Gert Wollheim: entrenamiento procesal entre amigos que declarase que haba querido prevenir a la juventud
La noche antes del juicio jugamos a los jueces en casa del vicio. Dix fue absuelto, el cuadro restituido y vendido
de Mam Ey... Yo haca de fiscal y pregunt a Dix: Acu- a buen precio por Mam Ey.
sado, por qu pint usted la pars media con tan atroz [En: Otto Dix y el mundillo artstico de Dsseldorf 19201925, catlogo
claridad? A lo que Dix repuso: Porque es la herramien- de la exposicin de la Galerie Remmert & Barth, Dsseldorf 1983, pgs.
59 ss.].
ta de la dama. Estallamos en ruidosas carcajadas, pero
le explicamos a Dix que, si contestaba as a una pregun-
ta similar, su condena sera inevitable. Le aconsejamos
163
164
165
La fiebre de la metrpoli
Dix comparte con Grosz, Heartfield y otros contemporneos el entusiasmo por la gran ciudad y Amrica,
por el jazz y el shimmy, la moda y la cosmtica, el circo y las variets. Ya en 1921 se haba puesto los apo-
dos de Toy y Jim o Jimmy. En las primeras series de retratos que en 1920, 1922 y 1926 toma de l Hugo
Erfurth, maestro fotgrafo de Dresde, Dix trasluce sobriedad, dureza y su proverbial mirada maligna. Esta
actitud determina tambin todos los autorretratos de los aos veinte.
166
A comienzos de 1926 Nierendorf organiza la primera retrospectiva de Dix y edita un catlogo global de sus
grabados. El pueblo berlins pronto lo apoda Nierendix. El propio marchante se autoproclama jefe de
propaganda de Dix. El 21 de mayo de 1926 asume la representacin exclusi-
va del pintor Otto Dix. A cambio, ste se compromete a proporcionar a Nieren-
dorf seis cuadros anuales como mnimo para fines expositivos y venales. Pero
cuando Dix es nombrado catedrtico de la Academia de Bellas Artes de Dresde,
rescinde antes de tiempo -el 30 de enero de 1927- el contrato de representacin
exclusiva. Las relaciones con Nierendorf no volvern a intensificarse hasta prin-
cipios de los aos treinta. En 1935, tiempos sombros, el marchante ofrece a su
artista asilo en su galera berlinesa. Para Dix sta es la ltima exposicin de rele-
vancia en la Alemania nazi.
167
Traslado a la metrpoli
En noviembre de 1925 Dix, apremiado por su marchante Nierendorf, se muda a Berln con su familia (Nelly
tiene dos aos). En abril de 1926 el artista traslada su estudio al Kurfrstendamm. Enfila el punto culmi-
nante de su carrera. Con Max Beckmann y Oskar Kokoschka o los expresionistas de Die Brcke en el
lado figurativo, junto a Wassily Kandinsky y
Paul Klee, los grandes maestros de la abs-
traccin, Dix figura ahora en primera lnea del
arte contemporneo alemn.
Berln es la capital de una repblica de corta
vida, bautizada en Weimar en 1919, conquista-
da en 1933 por la dictadura nacionalsocialista,
siempre amenazada por la lucha de las fuerzas
polticas y agitada por crisis sociales y econmi-
cas. Mientras la Repblica de Weimar recobra el
aliento entre la inflacin y la crisis econmica
mundial desde 19251929, Berln se convierte
en una metrpoli artstica internacional. Su dina-
mismo es un imn que atrae a las fuerzas inte- Plaza Potsdamer de Berln, hacia 1933, Fotografa de Herbert Hoffmann.
168
lectuales de la poca: literatos, artistas, msicos alemanes y del resto de Europa. El capital y el mecenazgo
invierten en una concentracin indita hasta entonces de galeras, teatros, cines, variets, estudios cinema-
togrficos. Ante el relampagueo de las catstrofes sociales, el arte y el comercio, el estilo de vida y la cultura
de masas florecen. Del crisol urbano surgen impulsos innovadores para el desarrollo de las artes en el siglo
XX. Con la etiqueta de los Dorados veinte, Berln se convierte en la marca de la poca.
Dix y Berln
Dix y Berln: esta historia exitosa no comienza en 1925. A comienzos de la dcada, Dix-Dad causa furor all
con cuadros de materiales. En 1922/1923 los xitos expositivos y procesales berlineses le granjean el inters
del pblico. 1924 es un ao decisivo: la primera exposicin de 50 acuarelas y dibujos en la seccin contem-
pornea de la Nationalgalerie en el Kronprinzenpalais. En otoo de ese mismo ao Dix visita en su estudio al
famoso impresionista tardo Lovis Corinth, que, en su calidad de presidente de la Secesin berlinesa, reclu-
ta al pintor ms joven como miembro de la asociacin de artistas. La monografa de Willi Wolfradt publicada
ese mismo ao considera a Dix uno de los protagonistas de la era postimpresionista.
Con su traslado a Berln, Dix se sita en el centro de exposicin, comercio y recepcin. A comienzos de
1926 la Galerie Neumann-Nierendorf presenta por primera vez una retrospectiva de la obra completa de
Dix; ese mismo ao la Galerie Thannhauser de Munich exhibe
una segunda exposicin individual.
El perfil caracteriolgico del artista ya ha quedado fijado en la opi-
nin pblica: Dix-Dad se ha convertido en un clsico que ha des-
arrollado un estilo apto para el consenso. La crtica de arte ve
confirmados su entusiasmo o sus resentimientos y se sosiega. A
partir de 1927, Dix se mueve en el mbito internacional, partici-
pa en grandes exposiciones en Amrica y en Europa: en 1927 y
1931 en el Carnegie Institute de Pittsburg y el Museum of Modern
Art de Nueva York; en 1928 y 1930 en la XVI y XVII Bienal de
Venecia, paralelamente tambin en Chicago, Pars, Detroit, Ams-
terdam, Viena, Oslo. En 1929, el Kunstsalon Wolfsberg de Zurich
le dedica la primera exposicin monogrfica en el extranjero.
En la primavera de 1927, con la ctedra de Dix en la Kuns-
Carta de Lovis Corinth a Otto Dix en la que le comunica su
takademie de Dresde, finaliza, tras un ao y medio, el per- nombramiento como nuevo miembro de la Secesin berline-
odo vital berlins. En el verano de 1931 la Academia Pru- sa, 6.12.1924.
169
siana de Bellas Artes de Berln lo nombra socio numerario. El pintor de la gran ciudad y de la guerra
es considerado ahora, junto con Georg Grosz, un destacado representante de su generacin en el
mbito artstico alemn.
170
Regreso a Dresde
La Exposicin Artstica Internacional de Dresde, celebrada en el verano
de 1926, exhibe seis cuadros de Dix. Con ellos el pintor demuestra su
talento ante la comisin de nombramientos de la Academia de Bellas Artes.
Con Dix ha de impedirse una cada del arte de Dresde a nivel provincia-
no. El contrato de siete aos entra en vigor el 1 de octubre de 1926, aun-
que el artista no inicia su actividad docente hasta la primavera de 1927.
Con el traslado a Dresde comienza una de las etapas ms felices en la
vida de Dix. Su estudio se encuentra en el edificio de la Academia de
Bellas Artes, situado en la Terraza de Brhl, sobre el Elba. Dix es muy
apreciado como maestro. A su clase acuden en masa alumnos que bus-
Cubierta de la revista Die Illustrierte Zeitung,
1.2.1930. can en l al crtico social verista y que, en no pocas ocasiones, se asom-
bran de su transformacin en clsico de la Nueva Objetividad. Muchos
se integran en el Partido Comunista Alemn (KPD) y en la Asociacin de Artistas plsticos revolucionarios de
Alemania (ASSO). El lacnico profesor ejerce un influjo duradero en el trabajo y en el estilo de todos ellos.
A diferencia de la vertiginosa bohemia berlinesa, el clima social de Dresde tiene un marcado carcter pri-
vado. Al nuevo crculo de conocidos de la familia Dix pertenecen el escultor Carl Albiker y el arquitecto Wil-
helm Kreis, al que pronto se sumar tambin el joven historiador del Arte Fritz Lffler. Los renombrados
mecenas Ida y Friedrich Bienert se convierten en sus amigos ntimos.
En la tranquila Dresde Dix lucha durante aos con dos obras fundamentales en forma de trptico sobre la
temtica gran ciudad y guerra. En 1930 obtiene un gran encargo pblico: un mural en tres partes para el
nuevo Museo de Higiene de Dresde. Las exposiciones individuales con-
firman su rango artstico a la crtica local. Entretanto la atencin de la
prensa suprarregional disminuye a ojos vistas. A partir de 1928, Dix vuel-
ve a ser un artista de Dresde.
172
173
174
Tambin en la Academia de Bellas Artes de Prusia se inicia a principios de 1933 un proceso radical de
depuracin. En mayo de 1933, Dix, al igual que otros muchos artistas, obedece el requerimiento del pre-
sidente Max von Schilling para que abandone voluntariamente la Academia.
Exilio interior
Dix, en lugar de plantearse huir al extranjero, se retira al exilio interior en el sud-
oeste de Alemania. Ahora, en vez del dinamismo urbano y los queridos tipos
caractersticos de la metrpoli sajona, le rodean un clima benigno y una natura-
leza paradisaca a orillas del lago de Constanza y en Hegau, un cambio exis-
tencial que Dix asimila con dificultad hasta el fin de su vida. La familia encuentra
una nueva patria primero en el castillo de Randegg, residencia veraniega de Hans
Koch. En 1936 se instala en una casa propia, construida por el arquitecto de
Dresde, Arno Schelcher, y situada encima del pueblo pesquero de Hemmenho-
fen, junto al lago de Constanza, que ofrece una vista tranquilizadora de la orilla
suiza neutral. Esa casa ser la residencia principal del artista hasta su muerte.
175
Preocupaciones existenciales
Sabrs que el 8 de abril de este ao he sido destituido
por el gobierno nacional, sin pensin. Como motivo han
aducido mis cuadros de la guerra, que seran adecuados
para socavar la voluntad de defensa del pueblo. Tuve que
marcharme de Dresde y ahora vivo en Randegg, cerca
de Singen. Vivimos en condiciones muy precarias, al da
si me permites la expresin, y albergo continuas preocu-
paciones de cmo [ilegible] el pan y la calefaccin, los
nios tienen ya helados los dedos de las manos y de los
pies. Por ello he de pedirte que me enves dinero con
urgencia. Mndame 550 dlares. Aunque hoy slo tienen
la mitad de su valor, me alegrara recibir el dinero. Estoy
convencido de que me lo enviars. T has ganado mucho
con ello y no desears que ahora viva en la miseria. Las
Catlogo de la exposicin Arte ventas y encargos han cesado por completo desde hace
degenerado, 1937. un ao. Seguramente la situacin tampoco mejorar en
los prximos diez aos. As ha sido siempre, nunca se
han interesado por los verdaderos artistas. Ya hacia 1500
escribi creo que fue Wolgemut en un cuadro Grita, oh,
Arte, y lamntate mucho, ahora ya nadie te aprecia
[correcto: Lucas Moser: Grita, Arte, grita y lamntate
mucho, ahora no te aprecia nadie, qu lastimoso.].
[Otto Dix, carta a Israel Ber Neumann en Nueva York, 1933, en: Zwis-
chen Widerstand und Anpassung, Kunst in Deutschland 19331945,
Akademie der Knste, Berln 1978, pg. 122].
176
La Nationalgalerie de Berln depura de su coleccin los explosivos cuadros con figuras de los aos veinte. En
total, las acciones de limpieza nacionalsocialistas del arte degenerado confiscan en los museos alemanes cer-
ca de 260 obras de Dix. Este proceso culmina en la exposicin inquisitorial de 1937, denominada Arte degene-
rado, un ajuste general de cuentas de los nazis con el arte de la modernidad. Entre los engendros de la locura,
de la desfachatez, de la ineptitud figuran ocho obras fundamentales de Dix. La Galerie Theodor Fischer de Lucer-
na subasta en 1939 parte de las obras confiscadas, propiedad de diversos museos alemanes. El 20 de marzo de
1939, en el patio del Parque Central de Bomberos de Berln, ubicado en la Kpenicker Strasse, se entrega al fue-
go el resto inaprovechable del arte degenerado, en el que figuran asimismo obras de Dix. Hasta hoy es impo-
Alfred Ahner: Arte degenerado en Dresde, 1933 Retirado en el Crculo de Bellas Artes de Gera
En Dresde me interesaba sobre todo visitar el Degene- Querido Lenk: En la exposicin conmemorativa cele-
rado, para tener al menos un msero vestigio de la brada en el Crculo de Bellas Artes de Gera expuse dos
modernidad. En el Degenerado estaba el expresionis- cuadros: un paisaje de Hegau y un retrato de mi madre.
mo. Dix. Klee Feininger, Nolde, SchmidtRottluff... Ayer recib del Crculo la noticia de que la Cmara de
Schwitters, George Grosz As pues, ya que durante Artes Plsticas del Reich en Berln ordena retirar
todos esos aos no pude ver nada en el extranjero, s ambos cuadros. Quiz le sea posible averiguar qu se
tuve al menos la oportunidad de contemplar la guerra esconde detrs de ello y si continuarn utilizando ese
[trincheras] de Dix... Es lo ms atroz que se haya pinta- mtodo contra m. Si as fuera, me esforzara por mar-
do jams! Ningn maestro medieval pudo dar forma al charme cuanto antes al extranjero, quiz las instancias
infierno con toda la fantasa endiablada como lo hizo Dix oficiales incluso tengan inters en ello. Es imposible
con su cuadro de trincheras mediante su exagerado rea- calificar de degenerados a ambos cuadros. Si usted no
lismo emparejado con la fantasa! Yo ola de veras a san- puede hacer nada personalmente, le ruego me diga a
gre. A intestinos... a descomposicin y a podredumbre, y quin he de dirigirme para averiguarlo. Al fin y al cabo,
todo el mundo estaba mudo e impresionado y creo que no quiero darle a esa gente el gusto de morir de ham-
tambin aquellos que pretendan burlarse de esta obra bre ante sus ojos.
de arte han hecho ms bien propaganda de ella. Dix es [Otto Dix, carta a Franz Lenk, septiembre 1937, Kunstsammlung de
el verdadero artista de nuestra sociedad! Gera].
[Alfred Ahner, carta a Hans Polack, 10111933, Schsische Landes
und Universittsbibliothek, Dresde, Seccin de manuscritos].
sible determinar si entre los 1.004 cuadros y esculturas y los 3.825 trabajos
sobre papel se contaban tambin Mutilados de guerra y Trincheras.
177
historia de su tiempo. Los numerosos cuadros de invierno y de tormentas en Hegau y en los Montes de Silesia o
de tempestad y hielo flotante en el lago de Constanza cabe interpretarlos como smbolos de la poca y de la situa-
cin personal del artista. En esta etapa de su obra, el paisaje es ante todo una imagen autnoma entre el ideal y
la naturaleza, una compilacin simblica de fragmentos
En la poca nazi pint paisajes en cantidades industria-
naturalistas en ltima instancia una invencin libre les. All no haba nada ms. As que sala al campo y
que no se desarrolla ante la naturaleza, sino en el estu- dibujaba (con desdn) rboles, un par de rboles... cosas
por el estilo. Me desterraron al paisaje (se re). Al princi-
dio. Slo las prolficas series de bocetos que el dibujante
pio era nuevo para m. Ahora lo he visto tantas veces,
toma directamente in situ con un simple lpiz y sin pre- que ni siquiera me fijo en l. En realidad tampoco me inte-
tensiones estilsticas muestran una verdadera huda resa ya demasiado. Me atraen mucho ms los seres
humanos, las personas.
hacia el paisaje. Casi da la impresin de que Dix sopor- [Otto Dix entrevistado por Maria Wetzel, en: Diplomatischer Kurier,
ta mejor los tiempos de creciente glaciacin al aire libre n 18, Colonia 1965, pgs. 731 ss.].
que delante del lienzo en el estudio.
Alegoras cristianas
La exposicin itinerante Arte degenerado de 1937 hace pblica en toda Alemania la proscripcin general de
Dix. Desde entonces su retirada a la historia del arte acontece en un nuevo nivel. Dix retoma ahora temas
cristianos, un mbito temtico que no le interesaba desde haca ms de dos dcadas. El famoso y desacre-
ditado inventor de exuberantes escenarios urbanos y blicos recupera por primera vez de manera metdica
una antologa selecta de motivos de los maestros antiguos, mucho despus de haberse apropiado de sus
tcnicas pictricas y dibujsticas: imgenes de la Biblia, de los santos Antonio y Cristbal, de la Virgen y de
los evangelistas Juan o Lucas. Finalmente, poco antes de su tardo llamamiento a filas en la Volkssturm [ejr-
cito de reservistas creado en 1944 e integrado por jvenes y ancianos], en marzo de 1945, se aaden Cristo
con la cruz a cuestas, la Crucifixin y la Resurreccin de Cristo.
El escultor de personas desterrado al paisaje busca compensar la poda de su inventario de ideas con una
adaptacin de los arquetipos iconogrficos del mito cristiano: un retorno a las situaciones existenciales del
ser humano. As, la alegora religiosa con referencia a la poca y a s mismo ms o menos clara reclama
cada vez mayor importancia en su creacin.
En 1939 Dix pinta en Dresde la historia del Antiguo Testamento Lot y sus hijas. El cuadro surge por encar-
go de Fritz Niescher, un industrial de Chemnitz que deja libertad al artista para elegir el tema. La alegora
de la lujuria se interpreta en Dix tambin como smbolo del fuego. Como ya
haca de nio, Dix traslada la escena bblica a su patria. Con el decorado de
Dresde en llamas como fondo, la obra adquiere tintes profticos: El 1 de
septiembre de 1939 comienza la Segunda Guerra Mundial, en la que la llu-
via de bombas de los das 13 y 14 de febrero de 1945 destruir el casco de
la metrpoli del Elba.
178
fen hasta febrero de 1946. Desde su capitulacin incondicional el 8 de mayo de 1945, Alemania ha queda-
do dividida en cuatro zonas de ocupacin. La Segunda Guerra Mundial ha dejado tambin en su land natal
ciudades destruidas y millones de muertos. Despus de doce aos de dictadura nacionalsocialista, la com-
pleta derrota moral tiene mucho peso. La victoria de la coalicin antihitleriana oculta al principio las contra-
dicciones entre las potencias occidentales capitalistas y la Unin Sovitica socialista. Pero en 1947 ya se
ve que una poltica alemana comn es imposible; la Guerra Fra agrava la situacin internacional. La pro-
mulgacin de la Constitucin en la Repblica Federal Alemana en mayo de 1949 determina la creacin de
la Repblica Democrtica Alemana. El desgarrn que atraviesa Alemania se convierte en frontera estatal.
A lo largo de los cincuenta aos posteriores ese costurn en el centro de Europa ser no slo el sismgra-
fo de la lucha por la hegemona entre el Este y el Oeste, sino tambin el escenario de la lucha por la supre-
maca cultural.
Dix no es capaz de aceptar la prdida de Dresde, su patria de eleccin, ni siquiera bajo los nuevos aus-
picios polticos. En 1949 reanuda sus visitas de trabajo anuales, costumbre que mantendr hasta poco
antes de su muerte. Como persona y artista siempre
entre dos aguas, se mueve entre los frentes de la
modernidad abstracta de posguerra en el Oeste y el rea-
lismo socialista en el Este, entre el olvido en la Repbli-
ca Federal y el control poltico en la RDA. En este obsti-
nado movimiento pendular por encima de una frontera
estatal y dos artes nacionales, Dix se convierte en un
solitario caminante fronterizo de la historia del arte de
posguerra de las dos Alemanias.
179
180
181
sias: neoexpresionismo y alegorismo cristiano. Hoy sigue pendiente una amplia dignificacin histri-
coartstica de su obra tarda.
Carrera de posguerra
Despus de la Segunda Guerra Mundial, Dix
comienza desde el principio y no slo en el
mbito artstico. Tras la interrupcin de doce
aos provocada por el nacionalsocialismo, tie-
ne que volver a planificar de nuevo su carre-
ra. Despus de Dresde fracasan otras dos
ctedras previstas en Berln Oriental y Ds-
seldorf. En la RDA se malogran las primeras
ambiciones de nombrar a Dix miembro nume-
rario de la Academia de las Artes de Berln
Oriental. La III Exposicin de Arte Alemn
celebrada en Dresde proclama en 1953 la
consagracin del realismo socialista sin los Otto Dix en su estudio de Hemmenhofen, 1964, fotografa de Stefan Moses.
Me he enterado por la prensa de que el 27 de enero estuve sentado a su lado en la Villa Reitzenstein. Cuando nos presentaron no entend su
nombre, como tampoco casi ninguno de los de los caballeros presentes. Lamento mucho haber estado sentado a su lado sin saberlo, mxime
teniendo en cuenta que valoro su obra desde hace largo tiempo, y a menudo habl de ella con mi amigo Rudolf Schlichter, por desgracia falle-
cido. Unos aos atrs, creo que fue en Saulgau, uno de sus cuadros me caus una conmocin especial: un cesto lleno de setas, que estaban
reducidas a sus formas estereoscpicas y, en consecuencia, en cierto modo cristalizadas. Como suelo acudir con frecuencia al lago de Cons-
tanza, confo en poder recuperar el tiempo perdido.
182
183
Telegrama de notificacin del fallecimiento de Otto Dix dirigido a la Academia de Bellas Artes
de Berln.
Legado y muerte
En 1968 Dix dibuj sobre piedra su testamento artstico: Autorretrato como calavera (fig. 17 pg 18). Aqu
como en ninguna otra parte la dialctica de la obra vital entre el nacimiento y la muerte alcanza su propia
esencia.
Dix muere el 25 de julio de 1969 en el hospital de Singen, junto al lago de Constanza, tras un segundo
ataque de apopleja. Tres das despus es enterrado en el pequeo cementerio de Hemmenhofen.
184
C A T L O G O
12. Retrato del Pintor Baumgrtel, 1914 19. La familia del pintor Adalbert Trillhaase, 1923
(Bildnis des Malers Baumgrtel) (Die Familie des Malers Adalbert Trillhaase)
leo sobre lienzo leo sobre lienzo
55,7 x 48 cm 119 x 95 cm
Fundacin Otto Dix, Vaduz Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Neue
Cat. razonado: Lffler 1914/11 Nationalgalerie
Cat. razonado: Lffler 1923/8
13. Retrato del pintor Kurt Lohse I, 1914
(Bildnis des Malers Kurt Lohse I) 10. Pareja anciana, 1923
leo sobre papel montado sobre cartn (Altes Liebespaar)
64 x 46,5 cm leo sobre lienzo
Fundacin Otto Dix, Vaduz 152 x 100 cm
Cat. razonado: Lffler 1914/7 Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Neue
Nationalgalerie
14. Autorretrato en forma de diana, 1915 Cat. razonado: Lffler 1923/6
(Selbstbildnis als Schiescheibe)
leo sobre papel montado sobre tabla 11. Naturaleza muerta con velo de viuda, 1925
69,5 x 49,4 cm (Stilleben mit Witwenschleier)
Fundacin Otto Dix Vaduz, depositado en Tmpera y leo sobre tabla
Kunstsammlung Gera 120 x 61 cm
Cat. razonado: Lffler 1915/2 Fundacin Otto Dix Vaduz, depositado en
Kunstsammlung Gera
15. Calle de los burdeles, 1914 Cat. razonado: Lffler 1925/13
(Strasse der Bordelle)
leo sobre papel 12. Retrato del filsofo Max Scheler, 1926
55 x 59 cm (Bildnis des Philosophen Max Scheler)
Galerie Berinson, Berln / UBU Gallery, Tcnica mixta sobre tabla
Nueva York 100 x 69,5 cm
Cat. razonado: Lffler 1914/16 Universidad de Colonia
Cat. razonado: Lffler 1926/6
16. Mi amiga Elis, 1919
(Meine Freundin Elis) 13. Autorretrato con caballete, 1926
leo sobre lienzo (Selbstbildnis mit Staffelei)
57,5 x 50 cm Tcnica mixta sobre tabla
Kunstsammlung Gera 80 x 55 cm
Cat. razonado: Lffler 1919/14 Leopold-Hoesch-Museum der Stadt Dren
Cat. razonado: Lffler 1926/4
17. Retrato de mujer con chaqueta marrn, 1919
(Bildnis einer Frau in brauner Jacke) 14. Retrato del pintor Franz Radziwill, 1928
leo sobre cartn (Bildnis des Malers Franz Radziwill)
50,5 x 38,5 cm leo sobre cartn montado sobre tabla
Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, 80,1 x 60 cm
Gemldegalerie Neue Meister Museum Kunst Palast, Dsseldorf
Cat. razonado: Lffler 1919/15 Cat. razonado: Lffler 1928/12
188
15. Retrato de la Seora Martha Dix I, 1928 22. Paisaje de Randegg con el Vgeli, 1936
(Bildnis Frau Martha Dix I) (Randegg mit Vgeli)
Tcnica mixta sobre tabla Tcnica mixta sobre tabla
60,2 x 60 cm 70 x 78 cm
Fundacin Otto Dix, depositado en Fundacin Otto Dix, Vaduz
Kunstmuseum Stuttgart Cat. razonado: Lffler 1936/8
Cat. razonado: Lffler 1928/1
23. Anochecer en Wangen, 1939
16. Retrato de una joven (Erni), 1928 (Abendstimmung bei Wangen)
(Bildnis eines jungen Mdchens (Erni)) Tcnica mixta sobre tabla
Tcnica mixta sobre contrachapado 69 x 79 cm
34,5 x 21,5 cm Coleccin particular
Fundacin Otto Dix Vaduz, depositado en Cat. razonado: Lffler 1937/3
Kunstsammlung Gera
Cat. razonado: Lffler 1928/7 24. La Anunciacin a los pastores (en el
17. Retrato del director general y Senador de Koppenplan de los Montes de Silesia), 1942
Danzig Ludwig No, 1928 (Verkndigung der Hirten (Auf dem
(Bildnis des Generaldirektors und Danziger Koppenplan des Riesengebirges)
Senators Prof. Dr. Ludwig No) Tcnica mixta sobre tabla
Tmpera y leo sobre lienzo 105 x 84 cm
96 x 72 cm Coleccin particular
Kunstforum Ostdeutsche Galerie Regensburg Cat. razonado: Lffler 1942/3
Cat. razonado: Lffler 1928/11
25. El Bannwald (Montes de Silesia), 1942
18. Desnudo sentado con cabello oscuro, 1930 (Der Bannwald (Riesengebirge))
(Sitzender Akt mit dunklem Haar) Tcnica mixta sobre tabla
Tcnica mixta sobre lienzo 81 x 99 cm
93 x 72 cm Fundacin Otto Dix, Vaduz
Fundacin Otto Dix Vaduz, depositado en Cat. razonado: Lffler 1942/7
Kunstsammlung Gera
Cat. razonado: Lffler 1930/9 26. Job, 1946
(Hiob)
19. Autorretrato con Jan, 1930 leo y tmpera sobre lienzo montado sobre
(Selbstbildnis mit Jan) tabla
Tcnica mixta sobre tabla 120,2 x 81,2 cm
119 x 90 cm Fundacin Otto Dix Vaduz, depositado en
Coleccin particular Kunstsammlung Gera
Cat. razonado: Lffler 1930/2 Cat. razonado: Lffler 1946/2
20. Pareja con capuchina, 1930
(Liebespaar mit Kapuzinerkresse) 27. Autorretrato como prisionero de guerra, 1947
Tcnica mixta sobre tabla (Selbstbildnis als Kriegsgefangener)
81 x 64 cm leo y tmpera sobre tabla
Galerie Bayer Bietigheim-Bissingen 60 x 54,5 cm
Cat. razonado: Lffler 1930/11 Fundacin Otto Dix Vaduz, depositado en
Kunstmuseum Stuttgart
21. Retrato del Pintor Hans Theo Richter y su Cat. razonado: Lffler 1947/2
esposa Gisela, 1933
(Bildnis des Malers Hans Theo Richter und 28. Prisioneros de guerra, 1948
Frau Gisela) (Kriegsgefangene)
Tcnica mixta sobre tabla leo sobre lienzo
100 x 70 cm 59 x 79 cm
Kunstsammlung Gera Fundacin Otto Dix, Vaduz
Cat. razonado: Lffler 1933/3 Cat. razonado: Lffler 1948/11
189
29. Personas entre ruinas, 1948 36. Tumbas en Reims II, 1915
(Menschen in Trmmern) (Grben vor Reims II)
leo sobre tabla Guache sobre papel
80 x 100 cm 28,7 x 29 cm
Fundacin Otto Dix, Vaduz Galerie Valentien, Stuttgart
Cat. razonado: Lffler 1948/17 Cat. razonado: Pfffle G 1915/7
30. Ecce Homo III, 1949 37. Puesto destruido, hacia 1917
(Ecce Homo III) (Zerstrte Stellung)
leo sobre tabla Acuarela sobre papel
81 x 60 cm 28,7 x 28,7 cm
Coleccin particular Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden,
Cat. razonado: Lffler 1949/2 Kupferstichkabinett
Cat. razonado: Pfffle A/G 1916/1
31. Hombre con dos mujeres, 1949
(Mann mit zwei Frauen) 38. Soldados bandose, 1917
leo sobre tabla (Badende Soldaten)
79 x 59 cm Guache, acuarela y lpiz sobre papel
Galerie Bayer, Bietigheim-Bissingen 40 x 39,3 cm
Cat. razonado: Lffler 1949/12 Galerie Valentien, Stuttgart
Cat. razonado: Pfffle A/G 1917/1
32. Gitana con nio, 1962
(Zigeunerin mit Kind)
39. Suboficial S., 1917
leo sobre lienzo
(Unteroffizier S.)
92 x 150 cm
Guache sobre papel
Fundacin Otto Dix, Vaduz
39,5 x 41 cm
Cat. razonado: Lffler 1962/7
Galerie Valentien, Stuttgart
Cat. razonado: Pfffle G 1917/9
33. Pequeo alzamiento de la Cruz, 1958
(Kleine Kreuzaufrichtung)
40. Mesa de mrmol, 1917
leo sobre lienzo
68,5 x 96,5 cm (Marmortisch)
Fundacin Otto Dix, Vaduz Guache sobre papel
Cat. razonado: Lffler 1958/2 39 x 35,5 cm
Fundacin Otto Dix, Vaduz
34. Retrato del Dr. Fritz Perls, 1966 Cat. razonado: Pfffle G 1917/14
(Bildnis Dr. Fritz Perls)
leo sobre tabla 41. Prostituta, 1920
93,9 x 74,9 cm (Strichdame)
Fundacin Otto Dix Vaduz, depositado en Acuarela, tinta y lpiz sobre papel
Kunstsammlung Gera 47,5 x 38,5 cm
Cat. razonado: Lffler 1966/1 Fundacin Otto Dix, Vaduz
Cat. razonado: Pfffle A 1920/2
35. Autorretrato con Marcella, 1969
(Selbstbildnis mit Marcella) 42. Yo en Bruselas, 1922
leo sobre tabla (Ich in Brssel)
86,5 x 68 cm Acuarela y lpiz sobre papel
Fundacin Otto Dix Vaduz, depositado en 49 x 36,5 cm
Kunstsammlung Gera Fundacin Otto Dix, Vaduz.
Cat. razonado: Lffler 1969/1 Cat. razonado: Pfffle A 1922/1
190
191
58. Prostituta (desnudo de medio cuerpo), 1925 65. Retrato de mi madre, 1920
(Dirne (Halbakt) (Portrt meiner Mutter)
Acuarela y lpiz sobre cartn Lpiz sobre papel
51 x 34,2 cm 50 x 37 cm
Kunstsammlung Gera Leopold-Hoesch-Museum der Stadt Dren
Cat. razonado: Pfffle A 1925/36 Cat. razonado: Lorenz EDV 6.1.1
66. A la belleza (boceto para el cuadro), 1922
59. Mutz, 1923 (An die Schnheit (Entwurf fr das Gemlde)
(Mutz) Lpiz sobre cartn
Acuarela y tiza negra sobre papel 50 x 49,8 cm
38 x 27,5 cm Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden,
Fundacin Otto Dix, Vaduz Kupferstichkabinett
Cat. razonado: Pfffle A 1923/8 Cat. razonado: Lorenz EDV 8.1.15
67. Yo de medio perfil derecho, 1924
60. Cabeza de muchacha, hacia 1923 (Selbst im Halbprofil nach rechts)
(Mdchenkopf) Lpiz sobre papel amarillo
Acuarela y lpiz sobre cartn 24,6 x 18,4 cm
51 x 38,2 cm Staatliche Museen zu Berlin,
Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Kupferstichkabinett
Kupferstichkabinett Cat. razonado: Lorenz NSk 1.0.11
Cat. razonado: Pfffle A 1923/60
68. Yo en 1926, 1926
(Ich selbst 1926)
61. Pareja, 1926 Tinta sobre cartn
(Paar) 49,5 x 37 cm
Acuarela, guache y lpiz sobre papel Staatliche Museen zu Berlin,
68,5 x 50,5 cm Kupferstichkabinett
Fundacin Otto Dix, Vaduz Cat. razonado: Lorenz NSk 1.0.15
Cat. razonado: Pfffle A 1926/2
69. Cabar - Estudio para un cuadro de la
metrpoli, 1925-26
62. Marinero y chica, 1926
(Tanzbar - Ideenskizze zu einem
(Madrose und Mdchen)
Grostadtbild)
Acuarela sobre papel
Lpiz sobre papel transparente
61 x 48,5 cm 32,4 x 42,8 cm
Fundacin Otto Dix, Vaduz Fundacin Otto Dix, Vaduz
Cat. razonado: Pfffle A 1926/1 Cat. razonado: Lorenz NSk 6.6.4
63. Autorretrato vestido de soldado, 1917 70. Cabar - Estudio para un cuadro de la
(Selbstbildnis als Soldat) metrpoli, 1925-26
Tiza negra sobre papel amarillo (Tanzbar - Ideenskizze zu einem Grostadtbild)
Lpiz sobre papel transparente
39 x 37,7 cm
32,4 x 42,8 cm
Staatliche Museen zu Berlin,
Fundacin Otto Dix, Vaduz
Kupferstichkabinett
Cat. razonado: Lorenz NSk 6.6.5
Cat. razonado: Lorenz WK 3.0.7
71. Cabar - Estudio para un cuadro de la
64. Retrato de mi padre a los 58 aos, 1920 metrpoli, 1925-26
(Bildnis meines Vaters 58 Jahre alt) (Tanzbar - Ideenskizze zu einem Grostadtbild)
Lpiz sobre papel Lpiz sobre papel transparente
62,5 x 40,5 cm 32,4 x 42,8 cm
Leopold-Hoesch-Museum der Stadt Dren Fundacin Otto Dix, Vaduz
Cat. razonado: Lorenz EDV 6.2.1 Cat. razonado: Lorenz NSk 6.6.6
192
72. Cabar - Estudio para un cuadro de la 79. Metrpolis (boceto para el trptico), 1927-28
metrpoli, 1925-26 (Metropolis (Karton zum Triptychon)
(Tanzbar - Ideenskizze zu einem Grostadtbild) Carboncillo, tiza, lpiz, sanguina y color
Lpiz sobre papel transparente opaco sobre papel
32,4 x 42,7 cm montado sobre lienzo
Fundacin Otto Dix, Vaduz
Lado izquierdo: 184 x 104 cm
Cat. razonado: Lorenz NSk 6.6.7
Parte central: 180,5 x 203,5 cm
73. Cabar - Estudio para un cuadro de la Lado derecho: 179,5 x 100,5 cm
metrpoli, 1925-26 Kunstmuseum Stuttgart
(Tanzbar - Ideenskizze zu einem Grostadtbild)
Cat. razonado: Lorenz NSk 7.2.17
Lpiz sobre papel transparente
32,4 x 42,8 cm 80. Retrato de Will Grohmann, 1927
Fundacin Otto Dix, Vaduz (Portrt Will Grohmann)
Cat. razonado: Lorenz NSk 6.6.8 Lpiz y tiza blanca sobre papel gris
74. Cabar - Estudio para un cuadro de la transparente
metrpoli, 1925-26 64,3 x 48,2 cm
(Tanzbar - Ideenskizze zu einem Grostadtbild) Staatliche Museen zu Berlin,
Lpiz sobre papel transparente Kupferstichkabinett
42,5 x 32,3 cm Cat. razonado: Lorenz VS de NSk 2.2.10
Fundacin Otto Dix, Vaduz
Cat. razonado: Lorenz NSk 6.6.9 81. Mujer rubia, 1929
(Blonde Frau)
75. Cabar - Estudio para un cuadro de la
Lpiz y acuarela sobre cartn
metrpoli, 1925-26
(Tanzbar - Ideenskizze zu einem Grostadtbild) 48 x 37,3 cm
Lpiz sobre papel transparente Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Kupferstichkabinett
32,4 x 42,8 cm Cat. razonado: Pfffle A 1929/2
Fundacin Otto Dix, Vaduz 82. Desnudo femenino sentado de espaldas, 1932
Cat. razonado: Lorenz NSk 6.6.10
(Sitzender weiblicher Rckenakt)
76. Cabar - Estudio para un cuadro de la Carboncillo y tiza sobre cartn
metrpoli, 1925-26 160 x 95 cm
(Tanzbar - Ideenskizze zu einem Grostadtbild) Coleccin particular
Lpiz y lpices de colores sobre papel Cat. razonado: Lorenz NSk 12.1.17
transparente
32,3 x 42,4 cm 83. Gran autorretrato como dibujante, 1933
Fundacin Otto Dix, Vaduz (Groes Selbstbildnis als Zeichner)
Cat. razonado: Lorenz NSk 6.6.11 Punta de plata y lpiz sobre cartn
77. Cabar - Estudio para un cuadro de la 58,3 x 47,2 cm
metrpoli, 1925-26 Staatliche Museen zu Berlin,
(Tanzbar - Ideenskizze zu einem Grostadtbild) Kupferstichkabinett
Lpiz y lpices de colores sobre papel Cat. razonado: Lorenz IE 1.1.1
transparente
32,5 x 42,9 cm 84. Busto de una joven con la cabeza
Fundacin Otto Dix, Vaduz ligeramente inclinada en perfil de 3/4 a la
Cat. razonado: Lorenz NSk 6.6.12 izquierda,1934
(Bste einer jungen Frau mit leicht
78. Cabar - Estudio para un cuadro de la
geneigtem Kopf im 3/4 Profil nach links)
metrpoli, 1925-26
(Tanzbar - Ideenskizze zu einem Grostadtbild) Punta de plata sobre cartn preparado con tiza
Lpiz sobre papel transparente 47 x 42,5 cm
42,5 x 32,5 cm Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden,
Fundacin Otto Dix, Vaduz Kupferstichkabinett
Cat. razonado: Lorenz NSk 6.6.18 Cat. razonado: Lorenz IE 3.1.6
193
B I B L I O G R A F A
TESTIMONIOS AUTOBIOGRFICOS Y FUEN- KARCHER, Eva: Otto Dix 1891-1969 Entweder ich
TES ARCHIVSTICAS werde berhmt oder berchtigt. Editado por Ingo F.
Walther, Colonia, 2002 (edicin original 1988).
A diferencia de muchos de sus contemporneos, y
de acuerdo con su mxima ya citada de Pintor, KINKEL, Hans: Die Toten und die Nackten, Beitr-
pinta y calla, Dix no escribi manifiestos ni dej ge zu Dix. Berln, 1991.
recopilaciones de escritos.
Con una nica excepcin (Otto Dix, Objekt gestal- LFFLER, Fritz: Otto Dix, Leben und Werk. Dres-
tet Form, en: Berliner Nachtausgabe, 3-XII-1927), de, 1989, (6 edicin ampliada y corregida, edicin
sus escasas declaraciones proceden de los aos original de 1960) = LFFLER, Fritz: Otto Dix,
posteriores a la Segunda Guerra Mundial y en su Leben und Werk, Frankfurt/M., 1982.
mayora fueron publicadas como entrevistas en
peridicos (especialmente sugerente: Maria Wet- MACGREEVY, Linda F.: The Life and Works of
zel, Ein harter Mann, dieser Maler, en Diploma- Otto Dix. German Critical Realist. Ann Arbor, Michi-
tischer Kurier ao 14, n 18, Colonia, 1965, pgs. gan, 1981.
731-745). Adems, en 1958 Dix escribi, para la
Washington School of Arts, dos extensos manua- SCHUBERT, Dietrich: Otto Dix. Reinbek bei Ham-
les tcnicos sobre pintura y composicin. Al empe- burg, 2005 (Monografa de pinturas, 6 edicin
o de los amigos debemos un gran monlogo corregida).
sobre arte, religin y guerra, editado en formato
fonogrfico (editorial Erker, St. Gallen, 1963). Este STROBL, Andreas: Otto Dix, Eine Malerkarriere
y numerosos testimonios ms estn publicados der zwanziger Jahre. Berln, 1996.
en: Diether Schmidt, Otto Dix im Selbstbildnis, Ber-
ln, 1981, pgs. 199-281. El legado del artista se
encuentra en el Archivo de Artes Plsticas del Ger- CATLOGOS DE EXPOSICIONES RECIENTES
manisches Nationalmuseum de Nuremberg. Otros
documentos importantes se encuentran en la sec- Munich 1985
cin de manuscritos de la Schsische Landes- und Otto Dix 1891-1969, editado por Rainer Beck.
Universittsbibliothek de Dresde (legado Fritz Lf- Museum Villa Stuck, Munich, 1985.
fler); Fundacin Archiv der Akademie der Knste
de Berln; Archivo de la Hochschule fr Bildende Viena 1987
Knste de Dresde; Fundacin Otto Dix de Vaduz Otto Dix, editado por Serge Sabarsky.
y Kunstsammlung de Gera. Museum moderner Kunst de Viena, Munich, 1987.
Stuttgart/Berln 1991
MONOGRAFAS Otto Dix 1891-1991, con motivo del centenario del
nacimiento de Otto Dix, editado por Wulf Herzo-
BARTON, Brigid S.: Otto Dix and Die neue Sach- genrath y Johann-Karl Schmidt.
lichkeit, 1918-1925. Michigan, 1981. Galerie der Stadt Stuttgart y Nationalgalerie Staat-
liche Museen Preuischer Kulturbesitz Berln,
BECK, Rainer: Otto Dix 1891-1969, Zeit, Leben, Stuttgart, 1991.
Werk. Constanza, 1993.
Londres 1992
CONZELMANN, Otto: Der andere Dix, Sein Bild Otto Dix 1891-1969
vom Menschen und vom Krieg. Stuttgart, 1983. Exposicin organizada por la Galerie der Stadt
Stuttgart y la Nationalgalerie Staatliche Museen
CONZELMANN, Otto: Otto Dix, Handzeichnungen. Preuischer Kulturbesitz de Berln, editado por
Hannover, 1968. Fundacin Otto Dix Vaduz y Tate Gallery de Lon-
dres, Londres, 1992.
CONZELMANN, Otto: Otto Dix. Hannover, 1959.
Colmar 1996
FISCHER, Lothar: Ein Malerleben in Deutschland. Otto Dix et les maitres anciens.
Berln, 1981. Muse dUnterlinden, Colmar, 1996.
196
197
I But all painting is eclectic in a certain sense, Dixs art cannot be categorised with just a single term or
or even better, organisational. phrase; his work unconditionally resists art historical
classifications. His logical development followed only one
Throughout his life, Otto Dix shaped and interpreted thing: the hurling motions of a rough-edged artistic
reality within the tension-filled span of his obsession for destiny in the Twentieth Century. To see him only in the
the great real (as opposed to Wassily Kandinskys context of the Neue Sachlichkeit, the exemplary style of
great spiritual) in addition to his secret passion for the Weimar Republic, would mean to ignore his animated
intensification and exaggeration. These elements versatility, his pictorial scepticism, and his amazing
served to form universally valid statements about the modernity. The stylistic syncretism of Dix works ranged
existential questions of life. Reality was the artists from the existential dynamics of Expressionism and
essential point of reference. The artistic impulses he Cubistic/Futurism before and during World War I to
took from life and everyday situations were the test contemptuous Dadaistic laughter at the Post-War
cases for his work: timeliness shaped form. However, Republic to polemical Verism with its potent social
while searching for a genuine German expressiveness critiques during the early 1920s. Afterwards, he stayed
in the Modern age, Dix also constantly re-examined on the path of an extremely versatile Realism with
techniques and themes, styles and subject matters of objective, magical, and romantic accents that led to an
the Renaissance and Romantic masters. The present eclectic Old Masterly Naturalism with critical undertones
and the art historical past would become the two poles around 1933. After World War II, Dix threw his
of his art between which the ambiguity of the pictorial Renaissance junk overboard and set off for new
world and their exhilarating effects developed. territories, to Neo-Expressionism and religious allegories.
In 1920, the Front Grunt invented a brutal realism In his transformations and contradictions, Otto Dixs
(Verism) with furious Dada-inspired deconstructions that works reflect the breaks and reprehensibleness of the
would make him famous and infamous. The principle Twentieth Century. He could always be sure of the
was: The coldness of the world was to be superseded by attacks and defences of the snubbed spirit of the times.
the coldness of art. This naturally did not succeed. The Nevertheless, Dix always remained true to himself with
world is always colder. But Dix worked off his general his own rough decisiveness - and he is still a
wrath at being deceived (George Grosz) in aggressively controversial figure in the history of German art. I
intense pictorial formulas. His art is a mirror probe. With wont paint for them or for them. Im sorry. Im just that
it, Dix reached the point that lurks beyond good and evil, kind of sovereign prole, dont you know, that can say
true or false. And the brutal Positivism that observes Ill do what you want. I dont know what good it will do
without upsetting itself with which Friedrich Nietzsche - but Ill do it. Because I know thats the way it is and
once defined art, is anything but objective (as the term there is no other way.
Neue Sachlichkeit - the new objectivity - used by art
history to describe the culture of the Weimar Republic I On the road of inspiration: Self-portraits
suggests). Dix exaggerated Realism to its extreme. He Secrets should not be spoken aloud
disappeared behind the act of describing the intimate
details of the supposedly routine, usual, and I will either become infamous - or famous: Otto Dix
recognisable. Too many details and too many fulfilled his early prophesy in both senses of the term in
descriptions, however, made the objects inexplicable. the fullness of an oeuvre that included nearly 500 self-
Too much precision meant the elimination of realism. portraits. Along with Kthe Kollwitz, Lovis Corinth, and
Supernaturalism was an instrument of distancing. The Max Beckmann, Dix was one of the modern artists who
tangible irritations and two-way appraisals of Dix oeuvre sceptically observed himself throughout his life. Shortly
are rooted in this indifference, which made every one of before the outbreak of World War I, he demonstrated his
his paintings a free-for-all for opposing interpretations. creative will in the guise of the apocalyptic smoker (Self-
portrait as Smoker, 1914) with a predatory look. The birth
Art as an adventure - this led Dix to the lowest abysses of the artist out the spirit of the god Dionysus. In the last
of mankind - and often beyond the boarders of good self-portrait with his granddaughter Marcella (Self-portrait
taste. The time during which the abstract avant-garde with Granddaughter Marcella, 1969), which he painted in
198
the year of his death, Dix revealed the sum of his life artist remained unadvised behind made-up masks -
experience and rough-edged existence - and in the end insecurity on the way to his artistic breakthrough in
he even managed to appropriate a little laugh from the Dsseldorf. But the scenic self-portrait in which he
basic contradiction between blossoming and withering. In revealed his twofold-role of bystander and witness also
between: Self-reflections during every stage of his life for offered a preliminary taste of what would later come in
very different reasons in all styles and classifications - the central panel of the Metropolis Triptych from 1928.
from expressionistic realisations to razor-sharp analyses One thing becomes very clear at this point: the artist
to Old Masterly allegories on the one hand and from desperately required a spiritual interpretation of his
preliminary sketches to detailed drafts to the final deeds at decisive turning points of his career.
ingenious masterpieces on the other.
In 1924, the year in which Dix emerged at the forefront
The self-portrait is a wide-ranging field of programmatic of German contemporary art with his first exhibition in
confessions and philosophical speculations. The only the Nationalgalerie in Berlin, the artist wrestled with his
thing of importance for a man without an agenda like Dix: destiny in sketchbooks and in front of the canvas. It
I never wrote any confessions because my pictures are finally appeared to him for the first time in oils after
sincere confessions... He who has eyes to see should many wearisome attempts: the muse: (Self-portrait
look! And he who does not trust his eyes after a second with Muse, 1924). She grows at eye-level through the
look should glance through the still predominantly painters hands that are armed with paintbrush and
unknown drawings. The viewer is confronted with an maulstick. The fertile and fearful woman raises her
artist who not only presented the exterior symbols of his hand in a greeting (or to strike out), a gesture of
life and deeds but who also looked into the secret blessing or annunciation that also contains
abysses of his soul, revealing successes as well as connotations to antique and Christian representations
failures - accompanied by an unruly and fleeting muse. of the muse. However, the flagrant presence of the
half-length nude in an Old Masterly painting technique,
In 1912, saturnalian melancholy rose iridescently in the demonstrated a hyperrealism that is pure fiction - an
cigarette smoke (Self-portrait as Smoker) between the imaginary tte--tte with an apparition.
lunar crescent and glittering stars, the black gall of
self-recognition. Creative power pulsated as a vital Dix appointment to a professorship at the Dresden
vibrato through the studio scene: painting like Academy in 1926 meant the start of a new station in his
breathing in and breathing out. The pictorially charged career and the artist once again required the
smoke - inhaled and exhaled - can be interpreted as a inspirational powers of a muse. And she promptly
sign of spiritual emanation and as a symbol of divine appeared encouragingly behind him - in a pose used
inspiration. This admission of action tells for the first around 1480 by the Master of Housebook in a
time about the difficult dialectics of a creative existence depiction of the Evangelist Luke (Self-portrait with
finding his way to the work between invention and Easel, 1926, charcoal). The painter himself stands
illuminations, design and mercy. motionless in front of the easel that blocks his only
means of exit (Self-portrait with Easel, 1926). However,
Dix pursued inspiration all his life; He never really Dix ejected the woman of his heart while on the path
successfully realised its expulsion in the (self-)portrait from the preliminary cartoon to the final painting. He
- the conjuring up of his changing muses. defended himself with an astute glance from his all too
inquisitive public; his pictorial idea remained hidden.
With the self-portrait Sehnsucht (Desire), the returning
soldier arrived in Dresden in 1919 in the cosmic crosshair As the goddess of destiny on the globe, Dix called once
of day and night, Eros and Thanatos. His mythic hubris more for his muse when he was forced to start all over
quickly cooled itself off with Dadaistic self-irony (My again after he was fired from his Dresden professorship
Girlfriend Elis (with self-portrait), 1919). Inspiration in 1933 and defamed as a degenerate artist by the
embodied itself especially in the erotomania of the National Socialists (Painter and Muse, 1933, charcoal).
female body, which occasionally led to sex crimes (The The figment of his imagination now appears behind his
Sex-Killer (self-portrait), 1920) and hallucinations (Picture bent back like a futile temptation: elegant and
with Mirror (self-portrait), 1923, watercolour). ephemeral, an expanse of ornament, a well-balanced
surging of lines in charcoal on greenish paper. The
An die Schnheit (Ode to Beauty) announced a great goddess of fate, the painters muse is at home in a
disparity in 1922. The artist - flashily dressed to the conflict: Fortuna and Nemesis at the same time - luck
nines - in the midst of a pleasure palace between a wig bringer and revenging angel. The artist, who cannot
stand and corset models can no longer come into decide if he should entreaty her or defend himself from
contact with the source of his art. No commands from her, needs her in his constant suspicion of fault (an
a higher being can be heard through the telephone inspiration) and in his constant fight with his own hubris
receiver that he has confused with his paintbrush. The (wanting to produce pictures without divine inspiration).
199
But this paradoxical muse from 1933 also stayed Battle paintings by the Old Masters look as though the
behind and remained a design, just like the one from painters were never there - Dix was there, always close
1926. It was banned to the reverse of a preliminary to the action and with no possibility of retreat. The two
drawing for the painting The Seven Deadly Sins. In World Wars of the Twentieth Century as well as
the realised final work, Dix preferred a relevant timely premonitions and the emotional long-term consequences
interpretation to a questionable self-interpretation. became the continuous motor of his artistic activities, the
stimulus for stylistic reorientations, for the intensification
But one thing becomes clear at this point: a studio self- of the motif, and also as a metaphor.
portrait with muse - an allegory of his own existence -
is the fundamental theme he commissioned from By the time Dix left for the Western Front in September
himself during this deceive phase of his career. But this 1915, he had already anticipatingly entreated war
goddess of destiny persistently abandoned the painter. many times - as a myth in paintings as well as an
The draughtsman left only silent traces of his internal apocalyptic vision in contemporary expressionistic and
embroilment and about-turns. Drawing allowed Dix to futuristic styles. Self-portraits from 1915 depict a trying
maintain a spiritual room where he could be himself. state of mind ranging from euphoria to cynicism:
Selbst als Mars (Self as Mars) and Selbst als
And yet, Dix always understood himself primarily as Schiescheibe (Self as Target) - a martial dominance
painter. He painted himself drawing only once and not in a deadly exploding vortex on the one hand and a
necessarily in a moment of inspiration in 1943 (Der seemingly naive shooting contest primitivism with
Heilige Lukas malt die Madonna (self-portrait), 1943). He perfide self-irony on the other.
depicted himself sitting on the bull as the legendary patron
saint of artists sketching a tamed muse in Christian garb. But reality quickly overtook Dix. Four years as a Front
Dix utilised the help of an art historical topos at this climax Grunt in the trenches at Reims and Arras, on the Somme
of his self-allegories - in vain. Even now, the painter did and the Marne, in southern Flanders and Byelorussia,
not succeed. The picture remained uncompleted. most of the time responsible for a machinegun troop as a
simple non-commissioned officer - that meant drawing and
The epiphany of inspiration cannot be grasped as an surviving. Helene Jakob, a comrade-in-arms in the spirit
illustration. Either it is in the picture or it is not. In the end, of the international language Esperanto, sent him square
he was left only with the hope of divine intervention: knapsack-sized yellowish sheets of wrapping paper
Wanting doesnt help at all, Dix jotted down on a (approximately 29 x 29 cm or 40 x 40 cm at the most) as
notepad shortly before his death, only mercy does. well as the tools that the artist on the Front could not do
without: soft carpenter pencils, fat crayons, black ink and
bright opaque watercolours.
II The World Wars
Indignation cannot be painted. In return, Dix placed nearly 500 drawings and almost
100 gouache motifs in her care. The spectrum of the
War and art - aside from his portraits, these elements subjects ranged from individual portraits to crowd
formed the great arch spanning Otto Dix biography and scenes, from the panorama of nature to close-ups of
his artistic oeuvre. World War I was a booster detonator rubble, craters, and ruins. At the centre: the fascinating
for him. The crazy four-year exercise influenced his deconstructional aesthetics of the trench-warfare
work over the next three decades and his view of the landscape. The surface of the earth went wild,
world for the rest of his life. Dix was 22 years old when grotesque shapes and forms in addition to strange
he was conscripted into the military in Dresden during the colourations forced a style on the draughtsman (Grben
mobilisation that took place during the summer of 1914. bei Reims II, Trenches at Reims II; 1915, gouache).
He was a year older when he volunteered for front-line
duty. At the age of 27, he returned to his parents home The routines of a soldiers life cast their ghostly shadows
in Gera at Christmas in 1918 - no longer young, but rich in the darkness of the dugouts: Sleeping - smoking -
in existential experiences and with an enormous delousing - writing (Marmortisch, Marble Table; 1917;
convolute of drawings. No other German artists lived Unteroffizier, Non-Commissioned Officer; 1917). The
through, shaped - and affirmed - trench-warfare on the machine gunner distanced himself with metaphorical
Front the way Otto Dix did: One has to be able to say intensiveness from the horrors he experienced as well as
yes, yes to human expressions that are there and always the subject matter of fighting and dying after 1917.
will be there. The 53-year-old artist was directly Mythical warriors, men without characteristics take over
confronted with World War II at the last minute in the the action (Badende Soldaten, Bathing Soldiers; 1917).
Volkssturm. He reacted soberly. Consternation during Fragments of surfaces, explosions of forms, wedges,
ten months as a prisoner-of-war as well as revulsion in circles, and cog scaffoldings serve the imagination of a
the face of the total destruction of his beloved Dresden warring dynamism that increasingly retreated from
influenced the furious start of his expressive late work. realistic portrayals.
200
Dix freed himself step-by-step from the object and Feu by Henri Barbusse instead. He filed the subject
experimented with the possibilities offered by away after that. The battle was over. But a new one
Modernism. If structured close-ups of an object still would soon begin.
stood in the foreground in 1915/16, Dix pioneered pure
Expressionism with additional Cubistic/Futuristic A new chapter of artistic coping and searching for
tendencies in 1917. During the last year of the war, the meaning began after World War II. Dix visualised
draughtsman ventured out into the cool bath of Christian iconography in a biting contemporary image
abstraction with apocalyptic visions of death carried of rubble using his newly reacquired Late
out in black ink. The reality of trench-warfare became Expressionistic artistic language (Hiob, Job; 1946) -
surrealistically stylised as the end of the world - and and projected the suffering figure of the Ecce homo
froze into crystalline structures. In the end, aesthetics on his own self-portrait as a prisoner-of-war: The
overwhelmed the chaos: Banishment by style. Dix suffering artist remains the creator of his own
never came closer to the avant-garde than he did here. memories and dreams.
Rubble was now continuously in my dreams. - The
time between the two World Wars was filled with Dix war realism reverberated for 50 years between
phases of pictorial coping in which the artist further Expressionism, Verism, and the art historical past. To
developed his own style. In 1920, Dada-Dix hurled his many, he suggested intense intimacy and truth, and
war cripple cynicism onto the stage of post-war society Dix still wears the signet of the antiwar artist. But - seen
with anger and contemptuous laughter (Die more exactly - he never took sides, never exposed,
Kriegskrppel, The War Cripples; 1920). He grasped at never accused. I just made still life paintings.
even stronger statements: the brutal restoration of an Indignation cannot be painted. The ambivalent
immediately experienced reality that often faded from radiation and the continuing effect of his war pictures
memory. Style meant less than the message in his lay in this indifference that retains its final secret
aggressive verism of that time. In 1923, Dix appeared between reality and vision, fascination and horror.
in public with the painting Der Schtzengraben (The
Trench) - and promptly provoked one of the great art
scandals of his time. His first realistic assessment of III The Human Stage: Portrait
the World War started its odyssey through exhibitions Everything that I ever saw was beautiful.
and museum storerooms, through the brains of
militarists and aesthetes until all traces of it were lost in Prometheus Dix always formed man in his own
the auto-da-f of the National Socialists in 1939. That image: from his first attempts to draw his parents
Dix makes me want to puke, wrote Julius Meier- around 1903 to the hundreds of times he approached
Graefe in July 1924. his contemporaries from all walks of life using all of his
various styles to its last revelation in the self-portrait
One month later, his portfolio Der Krieg (The War) with his granddaughter made shortly before his death
with 50 engravings, which was enthusiastically in 1969. Everything that you paint is a self portrayal.
published and publicised by the art dealer Karl He was never interested in a mechanical illustration of
Nierendorf, caused nationalistic indignation and reality, a material finding or a photographic snapshot of
received international recognition. Six years after his a moment. The spiritual expression, the individual
return from the firestorms, Dix freshened his memory forms and specific colours of a character, the
with photographs as well as with impressions won in phenomenon the whole, were always his goal - a
pathology labs and in the catacombs at Palermo. portrayal of essentials that require the artists power
(Menschliche Eingeweide, Human Entrails; 1920, and intuition. Only the painter can see and visualise
watercolour). The artist strained his radical realism to the whole. As a countermove, almost everything is a
present a total cyclical view of the War. He used the portrait in Dix oeuvre: it is the physiognomy of his
flexible techniques of engravings for his times regardless if it is a war composition, social
argumentation, from simple line etchings and rough tableaux, nude or even a landscape. Max Liebermann
drypoints to the multi-layered aquatints. encouraged the young painter he greatly respected
during the 1920s with the words: Just make a lot of
Dix definitive formulation of his primary theme was portrait!... With us Germans, everything we paint is a
made between 1929 and 1932 using Old Masterly portrait anyway! His biographer Otto Conzelmann
techniques and the consecrated form of the triptych. In called him the portraitist of man.
its synchronic meshing of simulated fragments of
reality and quotations of art historical motifs, it was also Dix portraits of his companions and comrades-in-
a complex description of a situation in which memory arms, of friends and strangers, old workers and
also played a fundamental role. Dix no longer dealt pregnant women, artist colleagues and patrons
with his own dreams of rubble in the last war painting ranging from the Bohemian to the middle-class,
(Flandern, Flanders; 1934/36) but with the novel Le demonstrate a sure feeling for psychology and a sharp
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sense of individual characterisation. But at the same friends in the spirit of Nietzsche and in the style of the
time, they are always also role-portraits in which social Expressionists (Bildnis des Malers Baumgrtel, Portrait of
categories, a defined temperament, a feeling for the the Painter Baumgrtl; 1914; Bildnis des Malers Kurt
times - and last but not least Dix indestructible love of Lohse I, Portrait of the Painter Kurt Lohse I; 1914). During
the grotesque were combined to form an inimitable the post-war years, he focussed on the existences found
amalgam. The painter held up a distorted mirror to his at the edge of urban life: the whores, the proles, the petty
contemporaries in his portraits that simultaneously hid bourgeois, and the bohemians. Dix depicted them in
and revealed habitual deformations of behaviour and expressive close-ups and with an increasingly sarcastic
conditions. The fresh manner in which the artist glance (Arbeiterjunge, Working-class Boy; 1920; Die
knuckled down to his task combined his diagnostic Familie das Malers Adalbert Trillhaase, The Family of the
attitude with emotional sympathy. Painter Adalbert Trillhaase; 1923).
Dix stored his first impressions of his subjects, which the The two monumental pencil portraits of his parent from
most important, in drawings. His instinctive grasp of an 1920 - father and mother reading as they did during his
objects essentials meant both love at first sight as well childhood - contain high-potent verism. At the same
as secretly observing the truth that lies behind the object. time, however, his ambivalence between polemics and
The artist attempted to catch and preserve it with all the representation led the artist to reduce the cutting
means available to him by insistently encircling the model sharpness in his portraits in favour of dignified
and motif, by looking at it, looking away, and then looking objective characterisations. In expression and
at it again, by quickly noting physical energies, technique, the double portraits in oil from 1921 and
physiognomic characteristics and a personal aura. When 1924 mark Dix biographical and stylistic development.
the first impression was condensed and intensified, Veristic intimacy still throbbed through the first picture
altered and distorted, he preserved its freshness - and created on location. The second, painted in
ambiguity - on paper. Both the artist and the object of his Dsseldorf, unmistakeably points to the distance that
affections are extremely authentic. Only the artist is Dix could achieve with objectively armoured irony. He
really close to a person. depicted his parents as if in hindsight: the couple is
shown frontally with sharply focused frozen details,
As a painter, Dix distanced himself from reality in time- smaller and trapped between the dominant armrests of
consuming processes by joining his powers of the sofa and the lower edge of the painting. They
recollection of first impressions with experience. His embody the attributes of working life with their
reputation for creating shocking similarities is not an distraught looks: two character heads and - at the very
analogous quality of his work but an imaginative one, front - four proletarian hands.
not the result of a visual show but of a spiritual one.
The painter often filtered the main point from the many After 1921, and especially after 1923, particular
visual facets and made it the foundation of his personalities from the world of the arts and culture moved
message. Attribute and atmosphere, every detail was to the centre of the very busy portraitists attention -
placed in the service of this goal. Painting without a without a doubt the symbiosis of a two-way image
model is basic ... Actually, when you want to make a cultivation propagated by the art dealers Johanna Ey and
portrait of someone, its best if you dont know him. Not Karl Nierendorf as well as collectors like Hans Koch and
to know him! I dont want to know him at all, just to see Hugo Erfurth. Dix, however, was somewhat more
what is there, the exterior. The interior will take care of transfigured in his portraits of his own children. In Nelly
itself. It is mirrored in the visible. in Blumen (Nelly in Flowers, 1924), Dix retreated to the
Romantics and the spirit of Philipp Otto Runge.
The son of the Dresden lawyer Fritz Glaser can still
recall after nearly 40 years how frightened he was of Dix decisively expanded his view once again between
the gloomy artists alarming behaviour while sitting as 1925 and 1927 in Berlin. Dixs breakthrough came as a
a teenager for the family portrait of 1925 and how the portraitist of the intellectual and bohemian scene of the
artist not even took the time to carefully draw what he Weimar Republic. His newly perfected Old Masterly
observed... I didnt understand then that he must have painting technique provided him the craftsman-like
had a phenomenal visual memory. He could not only ability to search out and intensify pointed individualism.
portray a persons exterior but also the emotional The action was set in faces and hands, expressions
impression he received from that person. That did not and gestures, poses and dispositions, the personal
necessarily make the most attractive side of his models colouring of the portrayed as well as the artists own
to light. large ears which are often passed on to his various
subjects. Anita Berbers head is a mask that covers her
Along with the nude, the portrait was the main domain of nakedness more than her red tubular-shaped dress
Dix versatile realism. During his academy days in does; the rolled-down stocking of the journalist Sylvia
Dresden before 1914, Dix mainly portrayed his closest von Harden reveals much about a dime novel
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existence; the clairvoyant look of the philosopher Max Dix pure myths shaped in red ink on the eve of World War I:
Scheler boarders on madness, the T-square in the Maenads und warriors between expectation and
hands of the painter Franz Radziwill turned Dix execution. The first whore appears in his oeuvre as an
colleague into a kind of minor master. urban Madonna in an aureole. The returning soldier
resumed this line of thought in 1919 and imagined woman
Aside from private works, portraits served almost with expressionistic emphasis as the cosmic child-bearer
exclusively as a way of earning his living after 1933 and (Schwangeres Weib, Pregnant Woman; 1919).
during the late 1950s - and they also look like a
combination of Old Masterly eclecticism and semi-official But that is the end of the myth for the time being. The
expressiveness. A new tension in his work only became present forced its way into the picture and with it a
visible again during the last decade of his life. The clarity pandemonium of new protagonists: models scarred by
of old can be seen again in his portraits of Margarethe life from the world of whores, workers, and the petty
von Negenborn and Fritz Perls. Dix made his next to last bourgeoisie. Dix prodded ahead first and most radically
assertion about mankind in a work that contains towards reality in his nudes of 1920/21. Berta, Minna,
elements of exactness and prophesy, caricature and and Mieze, Gretel, Elli, and the old Anna - they all carry
expression. His very last assertion on the subject was their eccentric bodies with a self-confident composure.
reserved for himself - in the shade of the tree of life. The draughtsman is close to them with his resolute
powers of observation, but he is never degrading.
Fascinated by the diversity and articulations of the
IV Eros & Thanatos: Acts and scenes female appearance, he portrayed their bodies like
Yes, that is also a love of the grotesque landscapes and stages with rough lines, extreme
structural foreshortenings, and expressive
For the Yes-Man Otto Dix, the double entry book- intensifications. Dix initially put together an archive of
keeping of life (Ernst Jnger) - the existential flow gestures and behaviours, collected types and
between becoming and passing, the dialectic of Eros and temperaments, and delivered components for the
Death - is the basic condition of being and the basis of his tendentious exaggerations of his complex and
art. It is necessary to show things the way they are. He paradoxical painted and printed compositions. Eros in
was always a victim and an observer at the same time: a the bordello on one side and Death in the chamber on the
double agent whose senses are both at the Front and at other. Whores and war cripples appear as witnesses to
the commanders vantage point. Naively and soberly the ambivalence of life and death, sailors and girls, old
dedicated to phenomena, he enjoyed his own and dissimilar couples, emaciated old women, and worn-
experiences and reflected spontaneously on them with out hookers. In bizarre bordello and macabre sex-crime
his pencil, etching needle, and paintbrush without making scenarios, the artist presented that which the philosopher
a detour past the intellect. once celebrated: brutal positivism that observed without
upsetting itself (Friedrich Nietzsche). That promptly
Dix was present during the dying of the Great War and called the prosecutors into action in 1922 and later
during the birth of his own children. Death always played repeatedly led to ideological irritations, cancelled
a decisive role in his stagings of the play of life and not exhibitions and to the ultimate verdict after 1933.
only in the context of the World War panoramas that are
laden with meaning. Everything in his urban scenarios Dix Eros experienced a Falling of the Damned during its
and memento mori allegories ignited his instinctive veristic high point in Altes Liebespaar (Old Couple;
sure-fire view: detailed bodies, obstinate attitudes and 1923). This deathly murky scene in an attic has been
physiognomies, autonomous characters, the passion for interpreted as a Pieta (Roland Mrz): The ladder from the
life and lust, temptation and decay. This is more urgently Decent from the Cross is present; the womans body
and enduringly truer here than in his other subject clearly shows realistic symptoms of death, the bed sheet
matters: Art cannot be a life insurance policy; it is a becomes a shroud, the old man stabs into the air. With a
testimonial and a risk. No, artists should not try to brachial sense of dialectics, Dix pushed the Christian
improve or to proselytise. They are not important enough. motif into the realm of the all-too-human, leaving irritating
But they have to bear witness. traces of his present state of mind behind. The white
linen sheet parts into the shape of a vagina - in vain - as
The unsolvable contradiction of Eros & Death, life- the painter also portrayed it two years later in Stilleben
long effrontery and motivation became a cardinal mit Witwenschleier (Still life with Widows Veil).
theme of his work from the academic Vanitas still life
painting Blhen und Vergehen from 1912 to the In 1926, the Drei Weiber (Three Women) once again
obsessively entreating sexual pathos from the time demonstrated his ironic hard-edged iconographic shift
between 1919 and 1932 to the confessional qualities of at the border between veristic polemics and the
the late Selbstbildnis als Totenkopf (Self-portrait as classicism of the Neue Sachlichkeit. Dix humbly
Death head; 1968 lithograph). invoked the Three Graces but eventually cancelled
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their appearance that he originally planned on in his teaching duties at the Art Academy in Dresden at the
expressive sketches. The painting is the quintessence start of the summer semester 1927 and returned to the
of continued drawn nude studies: The three types and place of his beginnings. Dada-Dix has become an
poses are fit for a textbook: three characters and three academy professor who wanted to rise to become an
temperaments, and almost the three stages of life too. Old Master in German contemporary art.
From 1919 to 1932, nude drawings formed a The Berlin portrait photograph is a programmatic self-
fundamental and sensitive field of artistic self-assurance representation. Dix is shown wearing a paint-covered
and development. The finest movements of Dix realism artists smock in front of a probably 1.80 x 2 metre
can be observed here. His nudes from the Neue large panel that is covered with paper. Brushes and
Sachlichkeit period between 1924 and 1927 are bowls of paint stand on a stool next to him. About half
characterised by stylistic and thematic moderation. The of the Selbstbildnis mit Muse (Self-portrait with Muse,
draughtsman put his provocative sharp minute taking of 1924) is visible on the wooden floor. The painter is
the early 1920s aside and found his way to a shown in the same pose: impressive profile, prophetic
concentrated linear style. Eccentric women are replaced look - a moment of tension during a break in the action.
by objectively sensuous females and later also by Repetition as an act of self-assurance. Painting is a
classically beautiful nude images. The development of trade; the studio is a workshop. The painter, however,
his work into a kind of Old Masterism can be most clearly is a magician. His hands produce the inner image.
seen in his nudes. Towards the end of the decade, he
replaced the pencil with red chalk, charcoal, and But the photographed painter is not shown painting. He
silverpoint to force along the pictorial revaluation of the draws. He holds a stick of charcoal in his right hand
image into an autonomous picture with all the means and an old piece of cloth for corrections in his left hand
available to him. The Old Masterly nudes are not solely in this wide-ranging scenario that has no analogy in his
impressed by stylistic desires but also by an addiction to oeuvre. To be sure, the so-called cartoon which he is
portraiture (Sitzender weiblicher Rckenakt, Sitting working on here - a 1:1 preliminary drawing that is
Female Nude; 1932, charcoal). It is this tension between traced on the primed wooden panel - was the
high art and his relationship to reality, historicism, and prerequisite for the many-layered oil and tempera
Verism that that make up its singular quality. technique of the Old Masters that Dix perfected around
1924. But what did the artist sketch in early 1927?
With his flight to Lake Constance, Dix not only lost his
urban environment but also the stimulating market of A face peels itself frontally from the white surface in
models available at the Academy. The female nude front of the painters eyes, the head of a capital nude.
emigrated into the realm of the myth. But even clothed The voluptuous woman with flowing hair leads a group
in Christian garb, it only plays a minor role after 1933. of modern bobbed-hair girls - the victorious entrance of
As a countermove, Dix again pioneered the academic the female sexus: A temptation and challenge for the
love of the allegory. The great arch of his oeuvre closed artist who was still afraid of his temperament as an old
with the traditional subject of Death and the Maiden man. A peculiar pencil drawing from 1927 has been
which explicitly embodied his prime theme: In 1913 preserved in Dix oeuvre (standing female figure;
and 1918 in symbolic and expressionist versions, in 1927). In the anachronistic pathos of her appearance,
1923 and 1926 animated as disparate couples and the nude is an antipode of the cool youthful models of
reinterpreted in 1930 as a symbol of melancholy. the Neue Sachlichkeit period. One could almost say
Transitoriness prevented Dix from acting quickly in the that a fertility goddess strayed off to Dix within the
case of his young daughter Nelly in 1941 (preliminary framework of the international Neoclassicism. In this
cartoon to Tod und Mdchen; Death and the Maiden; disposition, the hardly 40 cm small nude figure is
1941, charcoal). Her death in 1955 taught him a comparable to the large nude of the Berlin photograph.
lesson. He finally only admitted defeat shortly before The artist characterised the drawing in his files as an
his own death, even though he attempted three further unused study for the Metropolis painting. His central
radical nude portrayals during the last year of his life. work entitled Grostadt (Metropolis) was painted
1927/28 in Dresden. Five years before Max
Beckmann, Dix used the sacred triptych-form to stage
V Night in Metropolis: Thoughts about the an unholy night in the metropolis and summarised his
Metropolis Triptych own astute observations on the society of the Weimar
The fundamentals of an artwork are Republic. Even greater sensuousness can be seen in
unexplainable, only visible a detailed and even more subtly coloured cartoon. The
Metropolis Triptychon is considered a genre picture of
Otto Dix had himself photographed on 21 April 1927 in the Weimar Republic, an icon of the Golden Twenties
his Berlin studio on the Kurfrstendamm - a document and its abysses. Dix actually brought the idea for the
of farewell and a new beginning. Hs assumed his picture with him from Berlin. High society (complete
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with portraits of Dresden dignitaries) dances on the appointment. Dix conceived the new Metropolis with
shiny dance floor to the music of a jazz band. Outside, his higher standards in mind as a manifestation of his
prostitutes file past war cripples. At the left, a line of artistic potency for the Annual exhibition of the Saxon
worn-out provincial whores, at the right a bevy of high- Kunstverein. The large painting was presented here for
class prostitutes dressed to kill. There is really no room the first time under the programmatic motto Saxon art
here for an epiphany of the Eros. of our times during the summer of 1928. Dix therefore
cancelled the allegorical programme at the last minute
The basics of the composition on the right wing of the and intensified his desire for synthesis instead. The
triptych can be seen in the Berlin photograph. But the eidetic artist not only compiled the complex pictorial
fertility goddess became a big city whore in 1928: The design from his own treasure trove of critical themes
woman at the front of the Metropolis Triptych openly but also from the storehouse of early German artistic
wears the gaping emblem of a vulva on her red fur coat principles (the motifs referencing works by the
as an attribute of her profession. It opens as an attribute sixteenth century Saxon court painter Lucas Cranach
of her profession on the whores red robe and becomes are especially noticeable).
a wound on the body of society. What has happened?
As a painter, Dix consciously accepted the inheritance
A series of early sketches for a metropolis picture in a of a specific German art that simultaneously wished to
nightclub that was unrealised in this form datable to his be realistic and mythic - a fusion of the worldly and the
Berlin period around 1925/26, reveals a surprising spiritual. With the Metropolis Triptych, Otto Dix
development in his work. Dixs original iconographic established himself as Saxons painter prince of the
ambition can be seen only in these sketches. The twentieth century.
sketched nightclub appeared like an incarnation of
fertility. This must have been seen as a disruption to
the dancers, newspaper readers and jazz musicians of VI Landscape & Vision
the time. A foreign world entered the theatre of the paint every from memory
present like a brainwave. The oversized women at the
centre of the scene can only be interpreted as an Landscapes frame the oeuvre of the portraitist Otto
allegory. But who or what should it personify in the Dix. Banished at the zenith of his life for two decades,
midst of a pleasure palace from the 1920s? they demanded a central place in his early works
before 1914 and after his emigration to Lake
While looking for pieces of circumstantial evidence, Constance during the period of National Socialism.
Dix glance occasionally stopped at an object that But nature meant two things to him from the very
really did not belong in these surroundings. The beginning: a field of experimentation in his life-long
woman balances herself with outspread arm on a ball. humbleness before the object and as a home base for
An iconographical topos. The globe is the attribute of his attempt to attain to an idea. The great divide is
Fortuna - the Roman goddess of luck and revealed here that made Dix a great artist. On the one
coincidence, the symbol of fate. In the past, Fortune hand, he wanted to approach things as closely as
was shown with or without wings on a rolling or a possible but on the other hand he sought
hovering sphere. She appears in several guises In independence from the motif into order to freely
Albrecht Drers works, as Das kleine Glck as well invent it.
as in the more splendorous Das groe Glck, where
she is called Nemesis (copperplate engravings, 1496 In his only public statement before 1945, a short
and c. 1501/02). The latter is Fortunas Greek programmatic text in the Berliner Nachtausgabe of 3
antipode, the daughter of the night. She provides December 1927, Dix confesses: For me, in any case,
mankind with its appropriate share of retaliation for the object remains the primary thing and form follows
injustice and arrogance. It is virtually symptomatic for the object. The question if I am able to get as close to
Dix that he portrayed the appearance of Nemesis - the thing I see as possible is therefore of the greatest
vibrating between goddess and whore - in the first importance for me, because the what is more
version of his urban scenario dedicated to his important for me than the how! The how first
contemporaries as an ambivalent memento mori develops from the what. On the other hand, however,
amidst the partying in a Berlin nightclub. Dix wrote from Lake Constance on 23 June 1939 to his
artist friend Ernst Bursche in Dresden: I paint mainly
But this is no longer up to date in Dresden. Much was landscapes, many studies of trees and house, which
expected from the young academy professor. He was allow me to stay independent of the motif and to freely
supposed to provide decisive impulses for a invent the landscape because, in the end, artistic
renaissance of the contemporary art scene in the city expression is the main thing, and not the truthfulness
so rich in artist tradition. You thought of Cranach when to nature (that the middle-class and the schoolmasters
you thought of him, wrote Will Grohmann about his invented). This ambivalence between the analogy of
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the object and the search for form led to that striking models for the investigation of form, for the indelible
irritation that not only triggered Dix cryptic super impression of form, and the search for form. He drew
realism of the 1920s but also intensified his Old and painted them in every conceivable manner - and
Masterly allegories of the following two decades. Dix then lost all interest in them at the end of his life.
wide range of landscape paintings includes the two
poles of reality and vision. During the times of external chillness in the 1930s and
early 1940s, Dix turned psychological landscapes
Even the elementary school pupil and decoration made in the tradition of the German Romantic into the
apprentice distilled basic structures and artistic form protected location of his own internal experiences and
from nature between 1906 and 1908. The impressive hidden criticism of his times (without, however, wanting
natural realism of his youthful works developed from to exaggerate or abuse them as evidence of political
the symbioses of respectful observation and structural resistance). Signs of the times are revealed in
compactness. But soon after 1911, the student at the landscapes with snow and ice or the ambiance of
arts and crafts school devoted himself from the evening and violent thunderstorms. A glowing red
distance of Dresden and armed his newly gained cosmic landscape worthy of Albrecht Altdorfer with
artistic will to expressionistic reinterpretations of his storm clouds from 1939, the year that World War II
native landscape. Influenced by van Goghs pictorial broke out, served as a harbinger in which the end of
energy and Ludwig Meidners apocalyptic visions just the world was prophesised similar to his depiction of
before the outbreak of World War I, Dix raised winter Dresden in flames in the background of his biblical
landscapes and nocturnal city scenes to become painting Lot and his Daughters.
symbolic expressions of existential unrest.
Nature as a metaphor - this is a task reserved for
Considering the bizarre aesthetics of wars elemental painting. In his drawings, however, the same is true of
force, he developed the subject of the landscape into the landscape as for the nude and the portrait: With
one with existential depth and the potential for expression, he means style at the most here, never
unprecedented metamorphoses between 1915 and tendency. Up to 1939, Dix formulated traditional
1918. Trench warfare, which was a natural autonomous pictures in silverpoint, chalk and ink
phenomenon for Dix, harms nature, reshapes the drawings that spanned the range between nature and
landscape and invigorates it with untold energies. It the ideal.
reveals human entrails and leaves the dead behind as
obstacles and humus, the inheritance of time. The With the regained expressiveness of his mature works
draughtsman created with an increasing stylistic will after 1945, the native landscape became a field in
until he turned the landscape itself into a pure symbol. which he could experiment with forms. The older Dix
As orientation in enemy territory, the painter hung reveals a new way of seeing here in which colour and
realistically painted oil pictures on wooden panels on contour were considered pure values of expression.
the shooting range. The existential function of art as a Diaphanous surfaces, breaks in the material, and
means of survival was the nearest thing - but its reflections exasperate the view of reality through the
essential core was further away than ever before. As a window and point him on the way to vision. Bored of
countermeasure, Dix illuminated in expressive opaque them, Dix first put landscapes off to the side during the
watercolours the autonomous aesthetics of World War last decade of his life: So much beauty is no longer
I between deathly silence and heavy barrages as a interesting.
metaphor for the transcendence between madness
and beauty.
VII Myth & Allegory
After 15 years of urban euphoria, Dix felt himself There is no progress in art.
exiled to the landscape during the banishment to
the Hegau and Lake Constance that was enforced In any case, the innovation of painting rests in the
upon him by the National Socialist dictatorship - a spread of the material, in the intensification of the
central break in his life and work. After 1934, nature expressive forms that were basically already present in
became a fundament of his work on a new level. It was the works of the Old Masters. And: I like best to see
the conquest of the landscape with old masterly the basic themes of mankind anew with my own eyes.
painting techniques while reflecting on the Romantic - Two statements and the old question: What is new in
concept of an aesthetic (free)space. It was an end unto modern art? Dal answered Velasquez. In 1927 and
itself and a surface for projections as well as the setting 1958, Dix pointed to the Old Masters and the basic
for contemplation and the stage for pictorial themes of humanity. Pictures from the Bible animated
impressions. He not only turned the Hegau and Lake Dix imagination since his earliest childhood. Well into
Constance but also the Alps and the Sudenten the last decade of his life, the Bible presented him with
Mountains, Bohemia and the Engadine into valid the initiative for his most resilient works
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(Schmerzensmann, Man of Sorrows; 1964). He only Orpheus and Hercules, Christopher and Anthony, the
did without the Bible completely during one decisive four Evangelists and the Virgin Mary - in countless
phase of his career. Enough material lay on the streets series of drawings and often also in many different
of the Weimar Republic between 1919 and 1933. painted versions. One thing becomes very obvious at
Before and afterwards, however, he sought to this point: we see the artists concern that he might run
approach archetypes and models from the Bible with a out of existential motifs central to mankind. So he
variety of stylistic and iconographic methods. made long-term plans for pictorial cycles from the field
where he felt most at home since early childhood:
Dix formulated his first Passion of Christ shortly before Christian mythology.
the outbreak of World War I in 1913/14 with a mixture
of narrative lust and expressionistic drama; his next Already in 1937, The Temptation of St Anthony
one was made at the end of World War II. During the became a self-portrait and symbol of the artist-hermits
three decades in between, occasional allegories - the fight with the challenges of the present. Dix began
symbolic visualisation of abstract ideas - of the working on a cycle devoted to the four Evangelists in
Christian myth disturbed the course of his work. 1938. The basic idea of a cycle on the life of Christ with
Premonitions of death increased after a Stilleben mit the Birth, the Carrying of the Cross, the Crucifixion and
Witwenschleier (Still Life with Widows Veil, 1926). the Resurrection crystallised itself in 1943 which would
But it was the apocalyptic atmosphere at the start of find its continuation on a very different level of meaning
the National Socialist dictatorship that produced two in his expressive late work.
real allegories of death: Dix expressed his own fears In
Sieben Todsnden (The Seven Deadly Sins) and a Dix, who said of himself: I am not a Christian, because
Triumph of Death in 1933 and 1934. Being fired from I cant and wont live up to the great and basic demand
his teaching position in Dresden and publicly banished to follow me, happily utilised old and seemingly
as a degenerate forced him to flee to the art historical outworn subject matters because they were
past. He continued his search for a genuine German immediately understandable. The saving of the world
art in the Early German and Romantic masters on a is understandably the hidden theme of six large-format
new level to the bitter end. He was not concerned with allegories of St Christopher painted between 1938 and
Old Masterly techniques at this point but with a forced 1944. Dix dealt with no other Christian subject so
historicism in style and subject matter. It was time for intensively as the carrier of Christ, that strong figure
wide-ranging symbolic images, barely encoded from so many medieval legends, who for him (in
allegories of the present. accordance with a youthful experience) developed
from the heroic antique mythology of Hercules and who
The painting Die sieben Todsnden (The Seven had a predecessor in own work in 1930: Selbstbildnis
Deadly Sins) with its homages to Grnewald, Baldung mit Jan (Self-portrait with Jan). Under the protective
Grien, and Breughel, is the masterpiece of an art cloak of Christian symbols, Dix gave the old topos a
historically founded, naturalistic eclecticism and - as a new political timeliness. With the child, Christopher
prophetic commentary on the times - his first political carries the manifestation of the Logos and therefore
allegory at the same time. Dix allowed the modernised the concept of western civilisation through the dangers
personifications of the deadly sins to triumph. Even of his times. For the artist himself, this meant serving
though he would rework the political metaphor of the the strongest - the spirit.
Hitler moustache in Envy in 1957, the work is
unmistakeably already a Dance of Death in 1933. The His self-liberation from Old Masterly perfectionism and
desert grows, woe to him who harbours a desert, he the radical breakthrough to a late expressiveness was
quoted Nietzsche while the waters rose. combined with a fundamental change in his relation to
the myth and the allegory. After World War II, Dix saw
With his nationwide defamation four years later, it them in a new way, as a personally experienced
became finally clear that there was no road back to the visualisation of Christian motifs with the great biblical
official art world of the National Socialist state. At the figures of suffering. Job and Christ became timely
crossroad of the year 1937, Dix openly admitted the symbols of crime and punishment, sorrow and comfort.
consequence of his isolation on Lake Constance - and The circle closed in 1964 with the Schmerzensmann
returned for the first time since his youth to the great (Man of Sorrows), which in its painterly constitution is
timeless subject matters of the Bible and the Old equal in every way to the works by the young Georg
Masters. Adapting and reinterpreting Christian Baselitz. Christian allegories were finally turned into a
iconographical archetypes as well as occasionally also universal human symbol of spiritual crisis and hope in
antique myths cleared the path of the urban chronicler a sinister world - elemental dialogues between the
to examine and deal with mankinds existential Saviour and his painter Dix hoping for salvation. I was
questions. He contended with his new heroes - always conservative, - but how!
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My Girlfriend Elis, 1919 The painting is closely related to the subject of Death
After his sobering homecoming from World War I, Dix and the Maiden, a theme that Dix dealt with during all
was anxious to get his late start into the art world going phases of his work while studying the masters of the
and chased through all imaginable styles as a kind of early Sixteenth and the late Nineteenth Centuries. The
experimental orientation: Expressionism, Futurism, moralising wave of a memento mori finger during the
Dadaism - only to finally land at an especially polemical act of reproduction seems like a very broad hint.
form of realism. This friendship picture My girlfriend However, Dix iconographic intentions probably went
Elis culminates his brief Cubistic/Futuristic outbreak even deeper.
during the first Art Academy years as a member of the
avant-garde artists alliance Dresdner Sezession - The picture has been interpreted as a transplanted
Gruppe 1919. Pieta (Roland Mrz). The ladder from the Decent from
the Cross is present; the womans body clearly shows
Dix conspicuously affixed the names involved in this realistic symptoms of death that can be diagnosed; the
turbulent three-way relationship at the top right corner bed sheet becomes a shroud that glides down from the
of the paining. The central figure is Elis Franz, a fashion cross; the old man, himself a Reaper, stabs into the air
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and takes Frau Hlle with a polecat stare. With a senses of the phrase and left us approximately 500
brachial sense of dialectics, Dix pushed the Christian self-portraits amidst the cornucopia of his oeuvre.
motif into the realm of the all-too-human, leaving Along with Kthe Kollwitz, Lovis Corinth, and Max
irritating traces of his present state of mind behind. The Beckmann, Dix was one of the modern artists who
white linen parts into the shape of a vagina in vain - as sceptically observed himself throughout his life. In
the painter also portrayed it two years later in the Still several of his most important paintings, Dix presents
life with Widows Veil. himself self-confidently with the attributes of his
profession: Painters smock or easel, brush and palette
The same is true for this obscure death couple that - and always with a pointed sceptical look at his valued
was also valid in the case of the Trench: Existence contemporaries who stand in front of the painting.
comes before symbolism; restless Realism comes
before an allegory of Vanitas. Dix is serious about art: At the zenith of his career, when he emerged in the
No, artists should not try to improve or to proselytise. metropolis Berlin as one of most controversial
They are not important enough. But they have to bear protagonists of contemporary German art, Dix depicted
witness. himself in Self-portrait with Easel from 1926 as an
agent and eyewitness of the Weimar era. He assumed
Still Life with Widows Veil, 1925 the task of exposing and taking down the minutes of
Still life paintings are rather rare in Dix oeuvre before his times. His evil look and barbed paintbrush are the
1945. The artist usually pondered about the dissecting knives used by the artist-surgeon who had
transitiveness of the world and about beauty in it. This his finger on the pulse of the times.
painting, which he made shortly before moving to
Berlin, is also a suggestive Vanitas allegory. The painting is one of the portraitists masterpieces
from technical as well as from psychological points of
The observers view is directed towards a rather view. Pure tempera painting, the finest layers of paints,
shabby corner of the studio. The painters maulstick, a wan colours, the primacy of design - Dix demonstrated
device central for his old masterly painting technique, his artistic abilities with great understatement. Only he
is transformed - like a spine - into a skeleton and a hat knew that he again failed here in his oft-repeated
stand. A snap hat with a white lining and a widows veil attempt to visually come to terms with the artists
at the top swirl lightly around the body fragment of a problem of inspiration. The 1:1 preliminary drawing for
worn-out academy skeleton. Dix created this ghostly the painting, a so-called cartoon and in this case a
being as a double symbol of death. A blue plaster mask studio secret, shows him with his muse standing
of the artist made his brother, a stucco maker, hangs behind him. Like a good housewife, she places an
on the wall. By applying eyes and eyebrows as well as encouraging hand on his shoulder. But the painter
highlighting the lips with lipstick, Dix gives it the renounced this figure - he remained alone behind the
demonic appearance of a zombie. But there is even easel in the completed work. He maintains his stance
more symbolism. A glass jar just manages to hold two with iron discipline in this official action portrait at the
deep purple irises; the iconographic symbol of Christs start of short Berlin period, a time in which the painters
Passion and the Madonnas suffering. The elegantly smock had to be replaced by a suit and bow tie. Almost
piled draperies of the tablecloth are shaped to unnoticeably, he quotes his idol Albrecht Drer. The
represent a vulva, but the womb is empty; the promise position of his fingers under his chest was used in a
of new life is an empty promise. This obvious programmatic self-portrait in Munich dating from 1500.
memento mori has no room for Eros, the antipode of This gesture, which Christ as the Man of Sorrow uses
Thanatos, in the painters world theatre. to point out the wound in his side, became a stigmatic
symbol for the wounds inflicted on the artist by his
The motif of the widows veil - with and without a widow - contemporaries.
developed into a real passion for the painter and he
carried it out in various techniques and thematic nuances Self-portrait with Jan, 1930
in 1922 and 1925. It also reveals a shrill contemporary Appointed in 1926 to a professorship at the Art
aspect. Since the outbreak of World War I, prostitutes in Academy in Dresden, the period between 1927 and
Germany used the eroticism of the widow as a macabre 1933 was one of the happiest in his life. A middle-class
temptation. This double meaning sharpened Dix view of lifestyle, social recognition as an artist as well as a
lifes ambivalence: Yes, that is also a love of the growing family with loving children formed the
grotesque: like everything in the world is dialectic! But framework not only made an intellectual deepening of
how these opposites stand next to each other! his work at the end of the Roaring Twenties possible.
The themes of his subject matter were more relaxed
Self-portrait with Easel, 1926 and he also found solutions that were more
I will become either infamous - or famous. Dix made conventional and struck tones that are more
his own early ambiguous prophesy come true in both conciliatory.
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In 1928, his youngest son Jan was born in Dresden. Dix tied the two portrayed persons into a parallelogram
Two years later, he set the boy on his own shoulders of affection: He is dressed in a white painters smock,
and portrayed him in response to a recollection that the innocent lamb. She combines the roles of an
made a great impression on him. In 1927, the colossal inspirational angel and a female snake with the humility
poet Theodor Dubler visited the Dix home in Dresden of the Madonna and the temptations of Venus. The
and also placed the Baby Ursus on his shoulders. The intimacy of the couple culminates in the motif of the
artist holds his pointed brush as before, but almost interlocked hands (as can already be seen in Friedrich
everything else has changed in this self-portrait: His Overbecks Romantic allegory of friendship Germania
severely combed back pomaded hair is replaced by und Italia von Friedrich Overbeck from 1811/28). With
bangs, his studio is now out-of-doors, his chest and this double-portrait on a gold-leaf ground, the artist
head are frankly revealed and even his sceptical look construed an image dichotomous to his murderous
seems strangely concentrated. In 1934, the artist times. But Dix simultaneously undermined the
painted himself with his two sons in front of a tree in a idealistic state of being he represented here. Being
composition that is built up symmetrically like a tower. frozen to an icon means the loss of the inner emotional
He condensed these personal images after 1937 into level. With this latent demystification made in the
six large-format versions of St Christopher in which Dix fateful year of 1933, Dix bore witness to the downfall of
formulated symbols relating to the saving of the world the era that made him infamous and famous.
during the National Socialist dictatorship.
Annunciation to the Shepherds, 1942
In Self-portrait with Jan from 1930, Dix doubtlessly Being fired from his official state teaching position as
already interpreted himself in the guise of the carrier of well as his final banning as a degenerate artist in
life. The waving gesture of the two-year boy recalls the 1937 occasioned large symbolic pictures that
blessing gesture of the youthful saviour of the world contained hidden criticisms of his times. His preference
whom Christopher saved from the dangers of the time. for art historical naturalism crystallised itself in 1933
He serves the strongest - the spirit, commented Dix in and four years later it also took an iconographic turn
1938 on a sketch of the one who carries Christ. In his towards Christian themes. Long after Dix mastered the
exhibition in Zurich organized that same year, he techniques of the Old Masters, he searched out the
confronted his self-portrait with the picture thematic treasure trove of the Bible. In 1941, Dix was
Christophorus I. Contemporary art critics immediately commissioned by Albrecht Haselbach, the owner of a
recognized Christophorus-Dix in the symbolic role of large brewery in Namslau in Silesia, to paint six
the auxiliary saints. Is it really possible that Dix pictures with Christian motifs. And he was to relocate
shrewdly proclaimed the rescuing of art as an allegory the scenes to the area of the collectors home in the
of painting in 1930, three years before he was Sudenten Mountains. The artist started working on the
banished as a degenerate artist? Annunciation to the Shepherds before the year was
out and he completed it in 1942.
Portrait of the painter Hans Theo Richter and his
wife Gisela, 1933 Its hard to believe ones eye when looking at this
The idealised double-portrait of the Dresden artist painting for the fist time: Sugar-coated Christmas
Hans Theo Richter and his wife Gisela dates from the kitsch in the colour scheme of the Late Gothic German
year 1933. The National Socialist victory of that year painter Mathias Grnewald and a conventional
meant a biographical plunge with threatening composition in conformity with the great Dutch master
consequences for Dix. Politically compromised of the Seventeenth Century, Rembrandt van Rijn. The
because of his war and whore paintings, he was angel of the annunciation is at the centre of the
ejected from his professorship at the Dresden Art painting, followed by the heavenly hosts. The
Academy and publicly defamed as a degenerate shepherds with their flocks can be seen in the
artist. Dix lost the foundations of his artistic existence. foreground on the Koppenplan in the Sudeten
In the last portrait painting made during the Weimar Mountains, joyfully exited about the call: Be not
Republic, the portraitist achieved that insisting afraid.
sharpness of characterisation that clearly indicated
social categories in private portraits and On closer examination, however, we see that Dix set
categorisations of the times in individual portraits one irritating traps with his love of shifting meanings and
last time. Hans Theo Richter (1902-1969) was Dix shrill dissonances. These elements turn the painting
master student in Dresden from 1928 to 1932. As a into a consternating document at the highpoint of
draughtsman, he became one of the most World War II. The falling angels from the burning sky
internationally respected artists in the German get tangled up while crashing towards the murky earth.
Democratic Republic after World War II. His first wife The angels hand raised in greeting has the colour of a
Gisela perished in the bombing of Dresden in 1945; corpses and seems to be raised in self-defence
flames engulfed the studio. instead; his adjutants turn in panic horror - the cloud
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turns into a avalanche - the promised saviour explodes tree of life. Hope enlivens the horizon in the shape of a
onto the scene above the heads of the human sunny yellow hue.
onlookers as a force of nature. Dix seems to be
pointing out the helplessness of the good tidings The motif stems from a black-and-white photograph
Peace on Earth. taken by Stefan Moses five years earlier in the garden
of the artists house on Lake Constance. The well-
Job, 1946 known Munich photographer produced many series of
In 1946, Dix from returned from a French prisoner-of- portraits of important artists, writers, and musicians
war camp to a divided Germany. As opposed to many during the 1960s. He visited Dix in his Hemmershofen
of his Modernist comrades, he completed a radical studio in 1964. The painter suffered his first stroke
break with his own stylistic development and artistic three years later. After that, pictorial self-reflection once
methodology. He threw his old Renaissance junk again took on new importance. In a creative vortex, Dix
overboard and returned to his own beginnings: to overcame his lameness and formulated his legacy in
expressive and symbolic highlightings in an alla oil paints, prints, and drawings.
prima technique. Even today, Dix late Neo-
Expressionism and Christian allegories are still Dix also used the Marcella motif in two lithographs. But
controversially debated. especially in the painted version, the older and wiser
artist succeeded in producing a last valid expression of
In Job, the great silent sufferer of the Old Testament, his main themes. Facing his own approaching death,
the painter found an exemplary tormented figure and Dix seemed to reconcile himself for the only time with
a painfully timely symbol of crime and punishment in the existential dialectic of blossoming and withering,
a shattered world. Dix saw the fate of the rich man of with Eros and Thanatos - maybe.
Ur who bore all fateful satanic losses and the ridicule
of his friends with humility, as a symbol of Germanys The Metropolis Triptych, 1927/28
situation after the World War and the end of Hitlers The Metropolis Triptych was painted in 1927/28 in
dictatorship. The painter depicted Job during the final Dresden. Dada-Dix and the scandalous Realist
phase of his humiliation and loneliness. With his became an academy professor and a classic of
shaven head and scab-covered body, Job lies in front contemporary art. The large-scale three-part painting
of the ruins of his house with a fragment in his hand. made using an Old Masterly layer technique, marks,
The timberwork of the house recalls a swastika, the along with the War Triptych begun in 1929 and
symbol of the National Socialist state. It hangs completed in 1932, a high point in Otto Dixs work. The
dangerously over the scene. But Job raises his sky- painter resumed his sceptical observations of society
blue eyes trustingly upwards to his generous and during the Weimar Republic und cunningly placed
forgiving God. Standing firm in misery, resistance them in the horizon of a model art historical tradition.
against injustice and pain - he accepts his fate Five years before Max Beckmann, Dix used the sacred
trustingly. Fresh green germinates in the triptych-form to stage an unholy night in the metropolis.
background. Berlins urban realism, the painting of alienation, was
presented with its high altarpiece in 1928. It pays its
With his expressive reinterpretation of Christian respects to Berlin ex negativo. (Eberhard Roters)
iconography, Dix secured a metaphorical level for Today, the painting is considered an icon of the
himself after the existential insecurity of a transformed Golden Twenties - and its abyss. With this work, Dix
reality. He formulated timely images of great entered himself into the art historical annals as an
expressiveness and insight using the pictorial ambivalent interpreter of the era between revolution
language of his veristic Post-War Expressionism. His and reaction in the art history of the Twentieth Century.
Job is not only a lamentation. It also asks about the The pulse of the nightclub excesses vibrating to the hot
responsibility and dignity of the individual. rhythms of jazz and swing bands is at the heart of the
triptych. The Jimmy and the Charleston are being
Self-portrait with Marcella, 1969 danced on the spotlessly gleaming dance floor (Dix, an
The last self-portrait in his painted oeuvre contains a excellent dancer, knew exactly what he was painting).
novelty: For the first and only time, Dix did not furious Everyone was up-to-date. Enthusiasm about
look at the state of consciousness of his times. And he everything American spread like wildfire. The upper
even appropriated a little laugh. He gently holds his class and the underworld indulged in luxurious
granddaughter Marcella - the daughter of his son Jan - elegance. The painter feared neither bother nor trends.
with his large rough hands (one of them with six A feast for the eye: chiffon und pliss, lace and fur,
fingers). As opposed to the dark furrowed figure of the feather boas und sequins, jewellery and shoes in
old painter, the small golden-haired baby is a tabula fantastic forms and colours. The heavy brocade
rasa in the book of fate, a symbol of future life. A material at the right is interwoven with gold leaf; nylon
framing grapevine grows next to this odd couple as the stockings and pearl necklaces glow in competition with
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each other; red blazes chromatically through all the dancers on the one hand and the artificial limbs and
keys of the scale. stumps of the cripples.
The characters present themselves exemplarily: Jazz In this three-part work, Dix changed style and
band und dancing couple in action, lonely girls in atmosphere like in a film. The painter would later name
Gerryflapper style, paying bystanders from the world of James Joyces novel Ulysses, which had just
industrialists and war profiteers. But nothing can be appeared in a German translation at that time, as an
trusted in this hall of mirrors. This show has trapdoors intellectual impulse behind this work. Montage, cuts,
and no happy end. The expressions and the gestures and quotes are his pictorial methods. Concurrency and
of the quintet at the left not only highlight the surging dynamics, the representation of the timeliness of the
jazz dynamics but also have an underlying sense of untimely, the interweaving of the past and the present
panic. The brilliantly gleaming messing instruments are his artistic intentions. The triptych is like a
wind their way seductively towards the female palimpsest of various layers of meaning. A veristic
members of the audience; saxophone, tuba, and desire to assess is countered by surreal sequences;
trombone look like suckers. The black drummer in the mythomanical intensifications are confronted with
background is inexplicably pierced by four metal pipes private self-irony; a critical diagnosis of society
(instrument or decoration?): A primal scream aimed at appears in the colours and contours of the great
heaven. With their contorted limbs and wooden facial German masters from the Late Gothic and
expressions, the two Charleston dancers appear like Renaissance eras. With irritating quotations of motifs
marionettes on a string, the frozen face of the pale and parodistic shifts of meaning, Dix assured himself of
tuxedoed gentleman looks as if he was on drugs. his times - and the legitimising roots of his own actions
Alongside, two pliss wings cascade to the floor - the at the same time.
extravagant bobbed-hair bird of paradise looks like a
fallen angel and neither the butterfly broach on her The innovative in painting is for me the spreading of
see-through cocktail dress nor the victorious wave of subject matter, in intensifying the forms of expression
her glowing red fan can halt this Falling of the Damned. that are basically already inherent in the works of the
In contrast to all of this, the nouveau riche couple Old Masters, he said in 1927 while working on the
sitting earthily at a table on the right oozing glamour, fat triptych. In any case, the object remains the most
and self-confidence seems almost morbidly healthy. important thing for me, and form is first shaped by the
The painter brought the sensuously overexcited object because how is more important than what!
opulence of this typical dance on the volcano under It is only from the what that the how is developed!
control with a classic compositional scheme: three True art will always to reach the expressive possibilities
figural groups, three wall segments, and three spatial that go beyond the level of the everyday.
levels. On the whole, the middle section is exactly
twice as wide as the side panels to the left and right of Much that was hidden in Dixs Metropolis has been
the middle section, which - as in the case of medieval discovered by art historians: Many influences for the
winged altarpieces - could completely cover the scene and action of the main figures can be found in
nightclub scene at the centre. The dark flipside of the Late Gothic altarpieces from Central and South
Golden Twenties is promptly made visible here. While Germany as well as for the distorted sense of space.
the fine society is amusing itself inside, two groups of The vibrating colour chromatics recall the paintings
whores file past the war cripples outside the pleasure of Hans Baldung Grien. The hand gesture of the
palace: At a left a line of worn-out provincial whores, at women at the front of the right panel is taken from
the right a bevy of high-class prostitutes dressed to kill. Albrecht Drers famous self-portrait from the year
1500 (Alte Pinakothek Munich). Drer for his part,
On the one side: The dirt of the gutter under the arch who self-confidently portrayed himself with Christ-
of a bridge, the last stop for useless war veterans. Only like features, quoted from the iconography of the
the warm red light in the background offers some Man of Sorrows who points to the wound in his side
semblance of home, a bordello. A shrill hip swinging here. In this way, the level of meaning of the vagina
blond extends her claws mockingly at the is shifted. It opens as an attribute of her profession
lasciviousness of the grey cripple to whom Dix gave his on the whores red robe and becomes a wound on
own features. On the other side: a bizarre group of the body of society.
costumed women plying the worlds oldest profession
parade past a sitting war cripple whose military salute As a freshly appointed Academy professor in Dresden,
remains unreturned; a magical storm brews in front of much was expected from Dix and he stood under great
the blank backdrop of a fantastically swelling Neo- pressure. He was to supply decisive impulses for a
Baroque architecture. Nowhere else can the crass renaissance of the art scene in the city so full of
contradictions of this picture be seen as clearly as in artistic traditions. You thought of Cranach when you
the comparison of the striking legs of whores and thought of him, Will Grohmann wrote about his
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appointment (Lucas Cranach was the Saxon court not only compiled the complex design from his own
painter during the early Sixteenth Century.) He brought critical reserve of themes but also from the storehouse
the idea of a large-scale metropolis painting with him of old masterly principles and forgotten memorial
from Berlin. The painter changed the concept in images. As a painter, he consciously followed in the
Dresden. Dix conceived the new Metropolis with his footsteps of a specific form of German art that
higher standards in mind as a manifestation of his simultaneously wants to be realistic and mythical, a
artistic potency for the annual exhibition of the Saxon fusion of the world and the spirit.
Kunstverein. The Berlin nightclub with its anonymous
staff as an allegory of fate in the shape of Fortuna on a When the Metropolis Triptych was exhibited for the first
globe turned into a clique of very worldly honourable time during the summer of 1928 under the programmatic
citizens of Dresden. Many of the persons have been motto Saxon art of our times, Dix confirmed his own
interpreted as contemporary portraits (Birgit Schwarz): view of himself as following in the tradition of Lucas
Aside from Martha, the artists wife, as a dancer as well Cranach as the modern court painter of Saxony. In the
as his artist friend Gert Wollheim as the violin player, Metropolis Triptych, Dix presented himself an excellent
the architect Wilhelm Kreis, the lawyer Fritz Glaser and representative of a reflexive Modernism confronts the
especially the Saxon Director of Ministers Dr. Alfred requirement of the Isms to be innovative and original
Schulze as the saxophonist appear as representatives with an obstinate work of memory. The Epiphany no
of Dresdens high society. longs stands at the centre of his altarpiece, but the
euphoria and horrors of the metropolis instead. Dix
There is no room here for the goddess of fate that Dix Triptych is a modern dance of death - a memento mori
originally intended in a sketch dating from 1925/26. He dedicated to his dear contemporaries.
instead intensified his wish for synthesis. The eidetic
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tion of naturalistic humility and courageous metaphoric Between art and life: Friends, feasts and work
with graphic stylisation and impressionistic freedom. The atmosphere of the Arts and Crafts School was
enlivened by the preparations for competitions, exhibi-
The sour coercion of a painting apprenticeship tions and parties. Dix formed inspiring friendships with
An initial financial aid request addressed by the worker intellectually and socially like-minded fellow students
Franz Dix to Prince Reu in 1906 to provide for his sons such as Otto Baumgrtel, Kurt Lohse, and Otto Griebel.
art studies was promptly rejected. We are of the opin- They shared his veneration for Nietzsches hero
ion that some good could also come from your son as a Zarathustra and the mystic purity philosophy of Maz-
decorator, was the reply supplied by the office of the daznan. But they were also united by their creative wills,
major-domo. As a result, Otto Dix underwent a harsh their lack of funds, and their love of nature. Dix hiked
four-year apprenticeship at the Carl Senff Company in through Bohemia, Moravia, and Franconia with
Gera. During his spare time, he worked his way up Baumgrtel in 1912. The fashion student Marga Kum-
through sober representations of nature to an Art Nou- mer also cast her erotic spell on him at that time.
veau-like Romanticism. During the fall of 1910, the
apprentice finally actually did receive a small princely Early works: From the old masters to the avant-
stipend and he set off for Dresden. garde
Dixs most striking impressions, however, were gathered
outside of the school. His studies among the master-
II Emergence in Dresden: pieces of Italian and German Renaissance art in the
Between arts and crafts and avant-garde Royal Painting Gallery in Dresden - like Pinturicchio,
1910-1914 Lucas Cranach, and Albrecht Drer - inspired technical
But I hope and work and tell myself, you have to experiments with glazes as well as stylistic adaptations.
become someone great. Styles ranging from Symbolism and Art Nouveau to folk
art and monumental art by artists like Arnold Bcklin,
Leaving home Max Klinger, and Ferdinand Hodler encouraged Dix lust
You will never become a painter, you will be a smearer for artistic fascination. His initial encounters in Dresdens
all your life! - With this verdict, the master painter Senff avant-garde galleries since 1912 animated him to exper-
sent his apprentice Dix out into the world in 1910, a iment with new artistic directions. This period began with
world that was initially called Dresden. The city greatly a sensational Van Gogh exhibition in January 1912 and
inspired the workers boy from Eastern Thuringia. Dres- ended with the explosive assessment of German
den became his second home and the starting point for Expressionism in 1914. In addition, the close proximity
an autonomous artistic existence. It was not only the of Ludwig Meidner, who moved to Dresden in early
Saxon metropoliss legendary baroque silhouette and 1914, also had its effects.
its world-famous painting collection that would mould his This vibrating atmosphere triggered fast changes in Dix
emerging years but also the undreamt of moments of early works, which ranged from translating the tension-
visions in the avant-garde galleries as well as the invalu- filled moments of Late Impressionism und monumental
able friendships he formed here. academicism to intensifying the expressiveness of Cubis-
tic/Futuristic abstractions. The debutant tried his hand at
The heavy burden of the drill everything from the past to the present that crossed his
Dix began his artistic career at the Knigliche Kunst- path. With stubbornness and expressive power, he now
gewerbeschule (Royal School of Arts and Crafts) in Dres- formulated the range of his future works, which would
den, where talented craftsmen usually received further encompass the super realism of the old masters to the
training. However, its combination of learning and living self-abandonment of the Expressionists. The revelation
along with pedagogical reforms and the contemplation of of Vincent van Gogh left thick trails of impastos paints and
nature formed the fertile soil in which modern art could metaphoric extremes in his works since 1912. From the
grow. Some of the best German artists of the twentieth fall of 1913 onwards, Ludwig Meidners apocalyptic
century came from the arts and crafts schools. cityscapes, Robert Delaunays orphic apparitions, Oskar
Dix first teachers were Max Rade, Richard Mebert Kokoschkas brutalising painterly impressions, and Edvard
(ornamentation and painting from nature) and Munchs analytical portraits became influential elements
Johannes Trk (figurative drawing). From Easter 1912 in Dix early stylistic pluralism.
on, he attended the decorative figure painting class
offered by Richard Guhr, a well-known painter and Nietzsche and the results
sculptor of monumental allegories. Masterfully Dix read the works of Friedrich Nietzsche since 1911.
coloured vegetable gouaches grew out of the classes The philosopher awoke and revitalised fresh powers in
he took with Rade and Mebert around 1912. His exer- German literature and art. Dix too was also enthusias-
cises with Guhr led to nude studies distinguished by a tic about radical thinking in opposites. Yes to life as the
draughtsman-like conciseness and an un-academic cycle of birth and death, yes to sensual intoxication, no
sense of authenticity. to God and the eternity of the beautiful form - that is
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the motor for the artists self-awareness. Shortly before Dix made an impressive contribution to the history of
the outbreak of World War I, Dix dedicated his only German Expressionism with his convolute of works from
three-dimensional figure to the philosopher. The now the First World War. For decades, they slumbered in the
lost 60 cm tall portrait bust made in early 1914, was drawers of his various studios until the French art his-
energetically modelled in green tinged plaster. A pow- torian Jean Cassou made them public in 1961. These
erful expressiveness unsettled his drawings since the drawings of trench warfare were later described as
fall of 1913. In complete accordance with Nietzsche, Dix records of hell. However, by comparing them to them
invented his own myths involving warriors, whores, and to the super realism in the suite of engravings entitled
Maenads. With new versions of such old stories as Der Krieg (The War) produced six years after the end
Leda and the Swan or Christ on the Cross, Dix of the war, one can see little these drawings actually
unlocked the great themes of his future oeuvre: Eros document and how much they really represent resist-
and Death. As late as the 1960s, Dix would say of Niet- ance and protest against being overpowered by an
zsche: He was the only real philosopher. inferno, captivating by style.
216
ists made enough art. We want to see things entirely field. In 1922, he participated in an exhibition and charity
naked, entirely clear, almost without any art. The Neue auction to benefit Russias hungry. Dix also contributed
Sachlichkeit (The New Objectivity), that is I what I a print to the Krieg (War) portfolio put out by Interna-
invented. Dix became the protagonist of an innovative- tionale Arbeiterhilfe (International Workers Aid) in 1924.
ly polemical brutal realism with great social critical During that same year he was also represented with 13
potency and political explosiveness. Reality, previously works in the Erste Allgemeine Deutsche Kunstausstel-
set into paintings as material fragments, was reflected lung (First General German Art Exhibition in the Soviet
upon anew in oil paints. Chaos gave way to more homo- Union, which was shown in Moscow, Saratov, and
geneous compositions. Lifelike pictorial formulas with Leningrad. In 1930, he also participated in the Amsterdam
an aggressive touch were crystallised out of anti-bour- show entitled Sozialistische Kunst heute (Socialist Art
geois stylistic attitudes. Contemporary art criticism char- Today).
acterized it as verism (Paul Westheim, Paul Ferdinand
Schmidt) and located on the left wing of the Neue Turning point: Dix in Dsseldorf
Sachlichkeit movement (Gustav Friedrich Hartlaub). In October 1921, Dix travelled to Dsseldorf for the first
In Otto Dix social portraits and society pictures painted time to visit the art dealer Johanna Ey and Hans Koch,
during his veristic phase between 1920 and 1923, he one of the earliest collectors of his prints. Koch purchased
combined the brutal positivism that observed without some paintings and had himself portrayed by Dix as an
upsetting itself demanded by Nietzsche with his own urologist. In the meanwhile, the painter fell in love with the
love for the grotesque. woman of the house: Hans Kochs wife Martha, nick-
named Mutzli. She is the one who would accompany him
Scandal and success throughout the rest of his life. Dix was enthusiastically
The scene was the juryless art show Berlin 1922: The received in the circle of Rhenish avant-garde artists
police confiscated Dix painting Girl in front of the mir- grouped around Mother Ey. The resonance he found in
ror. The artist was accused of obscenity and a trial date these circles stimulated Dix turn to verism. He travelled to
war set for June of the following year. The art dealer Karl the First International Art Exhibition Dsseldorf in May
Nierendorf from Cologne as well as the highly respect- 1922, where three of his works were presented. His move
ed painters Karl Hofer and Max Slevogt served as to Dsseldorf was completed in the fall of that year.
expert witnesses on behalf of the artists defence.
Berlins top ranking art critics appeared in the witness Mutzli
stand. The trial ended in June 1923 with a verdict of not Martha Dix (1895-1985), the daughter of a Rhenish insur-
guilty. With his explanation that he wanted to paint an ance director, grew up in upper class circumstance. She
admonishing picture, Dix - successfully - insinuated married the physician and art collector Hans Koch in 1914.
that his indifferent Vanitas representation had a mor- Their marriage was already on the rocks when Dix came
alizing objective. Dix was also found not guilty in a sec- to Dsseldorf. Martha accompanied the artist back to
ond pornography case that was argued in Darmstadt in Dresden and Koch married her sister after their divorce
the fall of that year because of Salon II. was finalised in 1922. Martha and Otto Dix raised the two
The pornography trial guaranteed Dix widespread public- children he had with Martha. In spite of these complicat-
ity and speeded his debut in the metropolis Berlin. Early in ed domestic circumstances, the warm relationship they all
1923, the Graphische Kabinett I.B. Neumann presented shared among each other never suffered.
the first solo exhibition. In April, Max Liebermann invited Mutzli and Otto married in Dsseldorf in February 1923.
the young painter to take part in the spring exhibition of This pair of opposites did not always remain true to each
the Prussian Academy of the Arts. He now entered the until death parted them when Otto Dix died in 1969, but
esteemed circle of established artists. Karl Scheffler not- they were united by an unswerving trust for each other.
ed that Dix has become reputable enough for the acad- Their daughter Nelly was born in June 1923; the sons
emies while the prosecutor is simultaneously trying to turn Ursus and Jan followed in 1927 and 1928. Dix pitiless-
him into a criminal because of his paintings. ly veristic view of life get a little cloudy, though, when it
came to his own children.
The political Dix
Dix left nobody in doubt about his mistrust of all ideologi- Port-of-call Dsseldorf
cal programmes and he vehemently rejected membership Dix remained in Dsseldorf for three years. He was no
in the German Communist Party (KPD). I never deceived longer an unknown artist when he arrived in the Rhenish
myself into thinking that I could change people or the world art centre, where he profited from the citys thriving econ-
with my pictures. However, his sympathies were definitely omy and its art business networks. He joined the radical
with those who lived in the shadows of the Golden Twen- artists group Das junge Rheinland (The Young
ties. As a satirist and a chronicler, he occasionally con- Rhineland), which developed into one of Germanys lead-
tributed illustrations dealing with the every day life of the ing artistic alliances. The gallery Neue Kunst Frau Ey
proletariat to left-wing publications edited by his two Berlin (New Art Mrs Ey) was the groups centre of activities and
friends, the political artists George Grosz and John Heart- Gert Wollheim was its chief propagandist. The period of
217
loneliness came to an end. Dix found his artistic home as sive business representation of the painter Otto Dix.
well as recognition and productive debates in Das junge For his part, Dix was required to deliver at least six
Rheinland. His closest friendships were formed with Woll- paintings a year to Nierendorf for exhibition and sales
heim, with whom he shared a studio during the first purposes. However, when Dix was made a professor
months, as well as with Otto Pankok and Arthur Kaufmann. at the Art Academy in Dresden, he cancelled the exclu-
As a matter of form, Dix became a master student of sive representation contract ahead of time on 30 Janu-
Heinrich Nauen and Wilhelm Herberholz at the art acad- ary 1927. It was only early in the 1930s that contacts to
emy during the summer of 1923, which entitled him to a Nierendorf intensified again. During the dark times, the
studio. Herberholz introduced him to the aquatint tech- art dealer provided his artist with an artistic exile in his
nique. Availing himself of new printing techniques Berlin gallery in 1935. For Dix, it was his last prominent
opened the way for a new illustrative subject in: War. exhibition to go on show in Nazi Germany.
Dsseldorf was a decisive port-of-call on Otto Dix path to
the top ranks of Germanys art world. His rise was accom- Visions of rubble: The War engravings
panied by the pornography trials in Berlin and Darmstadt, In time for the antiwar-year of 1924, Nierendorf published
the beginning political scandal concerning his first war a portfolio with 50 engravings. With reflective hindsight
painting The Trench, and especially his acquaintance after several years in addition to his newly won realistic
with the Cologne art dealer Karl Nierendorf, which would style, Dix reshaped the totality and anonymity of modern
develop into a long-term collaboration. He is the one who war. The suite of prints is the high point and conclusion of
suggested that Dix move to Berlin. his early oeuvre in this medium. Dix became internation-
ally famous with it - and finally also a political issue.
Urban fever The artist began working on the suite during the summer
Dix shared his enthusiasm for metropolises and Ameri- of 1923, when his daughter Nelly was born. He was
ca, for Jazz and Shimmy, fashion and cosmetics, cir- inspired by his own war drawings as well as the mummies
cuses and variety shows with Georg Grosz and John in the catacombs of Palermo and the photographic mate-
Heartfield as well as many other contemporaries. rial from World War I enlarged for him by Hugo Erfurth. By
As early as 1921, he acquired the nicknames Toy and the early summer of 1924, the aquatint and drypoint
Jim or Jimmy. Dix especially demonstrated his sober- engravings were printed in an edition of 70 copies and
ness, stubbornness as well as his legendary evil gaze in published in five portfolios comprising 10 prints each. Karl
the early portrait series taken by Dresden master pho- Nierendorf organized a great deal of unusual publicity to
tographer Hugo Erfurth in 1920, 1922, und 1926. These accompany the publication. He printed 10,000 copies of
attitudes influenced all of his self-portraits dating from a cheap popular edition that included 24 small-scale repro-
the 1920s. ductions and he engaged Henri Barbusse, whose 1915
antiwar novel Le Feu was an international bestseller, to
Nierendix: The artist and his dealer write the preface. An exhibition with the prints toured 15
The man who successfully launched Dix onto the art mar- German cities and often set off a wave of nationalistic
ket was Karl Nierendorf (1889-1949). His tireless commit- indignation. Sales were only modest, but the interest
ment, especially in the years between 1922 and 1927, end- expressed in them by the press and the public were
ed only when he emigrated to the United States in 1936. accordingly much greater.
Nierendorf operated a gallery for Expressionist art in
Cologne since 1920. He had his first business contacts with V The zenith: Successes in Berlin
Dix in Dsseldorf in April 1922 and by May 1923, they were and Dresden 1925-1933
addressing each other with the informal Du. Nierendorf dont improve and dont proselytise ... just
was initially interested in the watercolours with which Dix bear witness
kept himself financially afloat since the inflationary period of
1922/23. In the fall of 1923, he took over Israel Ber Neu- Arriving in the metropolis
manns Graphisches Kabinett gallery in Berlin specialis- Assisted by the art dealer Nierendorf, Dix settled with his
ing in prints. Nierendorff initiated the first Dix exhibition put family (Nelly was two-years old) in Berlin in November
on by the Berlin Nationalgalerie in the former palace of 1925. In April 1926, the artist moved his studio to the pres-
the Crown Prince (Kronprinzenpalais) and also managed tigious Kurfrstendamm boulevard. He was approaching
the distribution and sales of Dix suite of engravings Der the zenith of his career. Otto Dix now joined the masters
Krieg. The dealer founded the Galerie Neumann-Nieren- of figurative painting like Max Beckmann and Oskar
dorf in Berlin in 1925 and in November of that same year, Kokoschka, the Brcke Expressionists as well as the
Otto Dix moved with his help to the metropolis. great abstract painters like Wassily Kandinsky and Paul
Nierendorf organized the first comprehensive Dix retro- Klee on the highest rung of contemporary German art.
spective in early 1926 and published a catalogue raison- Berlin was the capital of a short-lived republic - born and
n of his prints. Berlin vernacular soon christened him baptised in 1919 in Weimar, conquered by the National
Nierendix. The art dealer called himself Dix head of Socialist dictatorship in 1933, constantly threatened by
propaganda. On 21 May 1926, he assumed the exclu- warring political powers and continuously shaken by social
218
and economic crises. While the Weimar Republic had a Realism in transformation: From Verism to Neue
brief period to catch its breath from 1925 and 1929 Sachlichkeit
between the inflation and world depression crises, Berlin During the mid-1920s, Dixs works underwent a gradual
soared to the top ranks of the international art world. Its transformation - not a summersault, but rather a level-
rhythms magically attracted the great intellectual powers headed adjustment of the artistic tools and methods of his
of the day: Writers, artists, and musicians from Germany versatile realism. The Neue Sachlichkeit replaced his
as well as all of Europe came. Capital and patronage expressive verism, in which the dynamics of the post-war
invested in an unprecedented concentration of galleries, crises reverberated, during the consolidation of the
theatres, cinemas, variety shows, and film studios. Art and Weimar Republic after 1924. The rhythm of the era also
commerce, lifestyle and popular culture flourished in the impressed itself in his paintings. Instead of polemics, he
storm clouds of the social catastrophes that were already now offered an approval of the social status quo. Instead
gathering on the horizon. Innovative impulses for the of alla prima oil paintings on rough canvases, he now
development of art in the Twentieth Century emerged from produced varnished layered paintings on polished wood
the urban melting pot. Berlin became the trademark of the panels. His style and subject matters became more meas-
Golden Twenties. ured. Cool and calculating observations and recording
pushed his wild love of the grotesque off to the side and
Dix and Berlin provided the foundation for the development of cynical,
This success story did not first begin in 1925. Dada- magical, romantic, and allegorical aspects.
Dix already created a furore there during the early Dix new realism presented itself as a typical German
1920s with his cracked and chapped object pictures. variety of a trend recognizable throughout the world that
Exhibitions and legal successes in Berlin were sources veered itself towards life-like representations. During the
of public interest in 1922/23, and in 1924, Dix pressed summer of 1925, he showed seven paintings at the pro-
forward with his first exhibition in the National Gallerys grammatic Neue Sachlichkeit exhibition in Mannheim.
Department of Contemporary Art in the former Palace Dix rational paintings were produced in the course of a
of the Crown Prince. In the fall of 1924, Dix visited the reflective and time-consuming working process into which
famous Late Impressionist Lovis Corinth in his studio art historical speculations increasingly flowed. Their qual-
and the president of the Berliner Secession got the ity is especially evident in the intensifying contrast between
young painter to join the Knstlervereinigung (Artists a classical compositional framework and eccentric surface
Association). An important monograph by Willi Wolfradt dynamics that apprehended body language and colour-
published in 1924 escorted Dix on the way to becoming ing. In addition, Dix Neue Sachlichkeit paintings distin-
an important protagonist of the Post-Expressionist Era. guish themselves by their artistic sense of materiality and
With his move to Berlin, Dix arrived at the centre of the an astonishing care for details.
exhibition and business world. The Neumann-Nierendorf
Gallery offered the first resume of Dix complete works ear- The portraitist: Prominent people
ly in 1926 and a second solo exhibition was shown that Dix painted a magnificent series of stereotypical por-
same year by the Galerie Thannhauser in Munich. traits in Berlin that mirror the glory and the wretchedness
The artists character profile in the public eye had of the Golden Twenties in which the artist shaped a
become clear. Dada Dix was a classic who developed piece of the physiognomy of his times. His subjects
an acceptable style. The art critics saw their enthusi- ranged from the exotic dancer Anita Berber in 1925 to an
asms or their antipathies confirmed - und then calmed unknown small match seller in 1927. In between there
down. Starting in 1927, Dix moved about on the inter- was also the shrewd Max Scheler, the inhibited journalist
national stage and participated in important exhibitions Sylvia von Harden, the business-minded art dealer Alfred
in the United States and Europe: In the Carnegie Insti- Flechtheim, the poor poet Iwar von Lcken (all from
tute Pittsburgh and in the Museum of Modern Art New 1926). The phenotypes of the businessman and industri-
York in 1927 and 1931, and at the sixteenth and sev- alist appear simultaneously with physicians, lawyers,
enteenth Biennales in Venice in 1928 and 1930. His bankers, and spouses. As always, the art dealer Nieren-
works also went on show in group exhibitions in Chica- dorf shrewdly und not unselfishly promoted and support-
go, Paris, Detroit, Amsterdam, Vienna, and Oslo during ed tendencies in his work. The path did not always direct-
these years and in 1929, the Kunstsalon Wolfsberg in ly lead to a sale. A planned commission to make a portrait
Zurich staged Dix first foreign solo exhibition. of the German Imperial Chancellor Hans Luther was not
Dix Berlin period ended in early 1927 after just one and realized. But with Dixs central pictorial motif, Nierendorf
one half years when he was appointed to a professor- could offer simultaneously offer two options to museums
ship at the Art Academy in Dresden. During the summer and private customers: contemporary prominence in the
of 1931, the Preuische Akademie der Knste zu collection and a Dix without risk.
Berlin (Prussian Academy of the Arts in Berlin) made Dix believed that portraits must solely concentrate on the
him a full member. The painter of urban life and of war external features - the inner features take care of them-
was now considered his generations leading represen- selves. They mirror themselves in that which the visible.
tative in the German art world alongside Georg Grosz. His portraits from the Berlin years were distinguished by
219
their psychological sensibilities and an almost old mas- ingly to art history, devoting himself to the techniques and
terly craftsmanship in effectively dealing with intense indi- motifs, the styles and subject matters of the fifteenth and
viduals. The sharpness of his insisting but never insulting centuries as well as the early nineteenth century. Basing his
characterizations provided a study of society in private work on the groundbreaking publication by Max Doerner on
portraits and a study of the times in individual portraits and the techniques of the old masters, Dix perfected the com-
he even made the nude portrait of a whore the counte- plicated technique of painting in layers with tempera and oil
nance of a unique personality. In his own self-portraits, Dix paints around 1924. This was the technical prerequisite for
demonstrated his legendary razor-sharp look at his times the appearance of his ingenious realism dating from the
evil state of political awareness. His withdrawal to the pri- second half of the 1920s. Georg Grosz recorded a visit to
vate and the representative impressively manifested itself the studio of Otto Hans Baldung Dix in Dresden. Dix ori-
towards the end of the decade in his portraits. Especially ented himself on such early German masters as Albrecht
his many portraits of his own children were greatly influ- Drer, Lucas Cranach, und Hans Baldung Grien, on Italian
enced by the German Romantics. Renaissance painting as well as the German Romantics.
He perfected the art of stylistic adaptations and the quoting
Back in Dresden of motifs. In addition, he desperately sought allegorical
In the summer of 1926, Dix was represented at the intensification of his repertoire - as well as his own doings.
International Art Exhibition with six paintings. The He fought in vain to visualize one of the central aspects of
painter was able to qualify himself in this way with the artistic existence: Inspiration. Melancholy und Vanitas
Art Academys appointments commission. By giving Dix were among the subjects he dealt with in this regard before
the professorship, an attempt was made to prevent the The Seven Deadly Sins from 1922 signalised a new qual-
quality of art in Dresden from sinking to provincial levels. ity in his path to becoming an old master.
The seven-year contract went into effect on 1 October
1926 but he first began teaching early in 1927. Masterpieces: The metropolis and war
One of the happiest phases in Otto Dix life started Dix summarised his two central subjects of the decade in
after he moved back to Dresden. His studio was locat- the course of an arduous process using the age-old trip-
ed in the building of the art academy on the tych form: Metropolis (1927/28) and War (1929-1932).
Brhlsche Terrasse above the banks of the river Both masterpieces form the culmination points of his artis-
Elbe. Dix was a very popular teacher. Students look- tic development. The dimensions of the pictures are
ing for the veristic social critic came to his classes in unusual as well as his intellectual penetration of the mate-
droves and were often surprised to find out that he rial, his simultaneous meshing of events and balance
turned into a classic figure of the Neue Sachlichkeit. between draughtsmanship and painterly elements. In this
Many were committed members of the German Com- assessment of the most decisive decade in his artistic life,
munist Party and in the Dresden Assoziation revolu- the artist no longer devoted himself to individual phenom-
tionrer bildender Knstler Deutschlands (ASSO - ena of reality but to a synopsis under the sign of Eros and
German Association of Revolutionary Visual Artists). death instead. Dix portrayed himself as a prime witness
The quiet teachers working method and style greatly in both pictures: as a war cripple marked by the scars of
influenced all of them. life and lust on the left wing of the Metropolis Triptych and
As opposed to Berlins glittering Vie Bohme, the cli- as a soldier carrying a wounded comrade from the battle
mate of Dresden society was of a more private nature. field on the right wing of the War Triptych. Dix not only
The sculptor Carl Albiker, the architect Wilhelm Kreis, shaped multifaceted symbols of his times that are open to
and soon also the young art historian Fritz Lffler heterogeneous interpretations in winged-altarpieces and
belonged to Dix familys circle of acquaintances in Dres- figurative compositions but also in the countless quotation
den. Their closest friends were the highly regarded of motifs and the shifts in meaning.
patrons of the arts Ida and Friedrich Bienert.
For years, Dix struggled in Dresdens peaceful atmos-
phere with two main works in triptych form dealing with VI Under dictatorship:
the metropolis and with war. In 1930, Dix received an Inner emigration on Lake Constance 1933-1945
important public commission to do a three-part wall exiled to the landscape.
piece for the new Hygiene-Museum in Dresden. Solo
exhibitions confirmed his artistic rank to the local press, Dismissal from an exalted position
but the national press slowly lost interest in him. From The effects of the Great Depression on the world econ-
1928 on, Dix was a Dresden artist again. omy and an extreme political radicalisation were already
conducive to the rise of National Socialism in Germany
The path to becoming an old master during the late 1920s. The dramatic dismantling of Ger-
Dix secure middle-class existence in Dresden encouraged manys constitutional democracy and the wide-spread
an artistic intensification as well as a quietening of his work cultural diversity of the Weimar Republic started when
- a fact that art experts and art critics observed suspicious- the National Socialist dictatorship began on 30 January
ly. Searching for a genuine German art, Dix turned increas- 1933 and Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of the German
220
Reich. Later, the annihilation of the Jewish population Dix was forbidden to publicly exhibit his works in Dresden
and the conquest of Europe moved to the centre of the in 1934 in spite of his formal membership in the Reichs-
nationalistic racial policies. kammer der bildenden Knste since January of that year.
Dix life and working conditions radically changed after While his works were shown in large exhibitions at the
the National Socialists came to power. Do you mean to Museum of Modern Art in New York and in the Carnegie
say that the pig is still alive? - noted the State Com- Institute in Pittsburgh in 1935 and 1936, Dix - with the
missioner of Saxony, Manfred von Killinger, in April exception of a last show in 1935 together with his artist
1933. Local rivals assisted in the arbitrary dismissal of friend Franz Lenk in the Galerie Nierendorf Berlin - suc-
the Critical Realist. The reasons stated in his certificate ceeded only in a veiled participation in exhibitions organ-
of dismissal refer to the old pornography charges as well ized by the Kunstvereins in Hamburg and Gera. Two
as a newly formulated accusation of subversion. Dix weeks after the opening, however, the Cultural Associa-
painting class was disbanded and many of the students tion ordered Dix two paintings in the old master style in
organised in the KPD and ASSO were threatened with Gera be removed. .
political persecution. The Nationalgalerie in Berlin cleansed its collection of
A radical cleansing process also began in the all explosive figurative works dating from the 1920s.
Preuische Akademie der Knste in early 1933. In Overall, about 260 works by Otto Dix were lost due to
May of that year, Dix and many others artists followed National Socialist confiscations aimed at purging Ger-
the request of its president, the composer Max von man museums of non-art. The height of this process
Schillings, to voluntarily resign from the academy. was reached in 1937 when the Nazis presented their
general appraisal of modern art in a wide-ranging
Inner emigration inflammatory exhibition entitled Entartete Kunst
Otto Dix never considered fleeing abroad. He withdrew (Degenerate Art). Eight main works by Otto Dix were
to southwest Germany and entered into an inner emi- among the monstrous, impudent, and incompetent
gration. Instead of urban dynamism and the beloved products of madness on display. A part of the confis-
characters of the Saxon metropolis, Dix was now sur- cated works from the collections of German museums
rounded by a mild climate and paradisiacal nature on was auctioned off by in 1939 by the Galerie Theodor
Lake Constance and in the Hegau - an existential Fischer in Lucerne. On 20 March 1939, the superflu-
change that Dix had difficulty dealing with until the day ous remnants of degenerate art were burned in the
he died. At first, the family found a new home in Ran- courtyard of Berlins main fire station in the Kpenicker
degg Castle, Hans Kochs summer domicile. In 1936, Strasse, including works by Otto Dix. Even today, we
they moved into the house that the Dresden architect are unsure if War Cripples and Trenches were
Arno Schelcher built for himself near the fishing village among the 1004 paintings and sculptures as well as
Hemmenhofen on Lake Constance, in calming sight of 3825 works on paper destroyed on that day.
neutral Switzerland. These dwellings would remain his
primary place of residence until his death in 1969. Turning point by flight: Art history and landscape
Dix maintained a rented studio in Dresden for the rest of In his refugio on Lake Constance, Dix continued the
his life. He visited his adopted Saxon home regularly search for a national art based on the spirit of early Ger-
until 1943. He produced large-scale figurative composi- man and Romantic art that he began long before the
tions in the style of the old masters during his banish- Nazis came to power to the bitter end. Being fired from
ment from the German art world by the National Socialists. his official state teaching position as well as his final
He was arrested by the Gestapo after the attempt on banning as a degenerate artist in 1937 occasioned
Hitlers life in the Brgerbrukeller on 8 November 1938 larger symbolic as well as timely images. In 1933, his
and was held in detention for a week. And in 1939, Dix predilection for forced historicism with naturalistic as
illegitimate daughter with Kthe Knig, Katharina, was well as eclectic accents crystallised. Four years later, it
born was born in Dresden. was an iconographic turn to Christian themes.
Starting in 1934, Dix, who missed urban life as an artistic
Under National Socialist dictatorship stimulus as well as a pictorial subject, dealt with landscapes
Books were burnt for the first time in Berlin on 10 May as artistic themes for the first time since his youth. I stand
1933. In September of the same year, the first exhibition in front of a landscape like a cow. Very soon, however,
of Entartete Kunst (Degenerate Art) was staged in the Lake Constance, the Hegau, and the foothills of the alps no
air well of the Dresden city hall as a first taste of the cul- longer offered him enough material, so he travelled repeated-
tural barbarism yet to come. Two of Dix most import ear- ly to Switzerland and the Engadine, in 1935 even as far as
ly paintings, Kriegskrppel (War Cripples) from 1920 and Venice. Between 1940 and 1942, he worked for longer peri-
Schtzengraben (Trenches) from 1923, were put on dis- ods in Bohemia and in the Sudenten Mountains. In the
play. The Klner Illustrierte Zeitung (Cologne Illustrated Romantic tradition, Dix elevated the landscape to form a
Newspaper) of 17 August 1935 quoted Hitler in front of the stage for his inner experiences and occasionally even as
Dix paintings in the Dresden chamber of horrors as say- the setting for reflexions on the history of his times. The
ing, It is a shame that you cant just lock these people up. many images of snow and thunder in the Hegau and the
221
Sudenten Mountain or storms and ice drifts on Lake Con- by the French one month later. He first returned to
stance can be seen as signs of the times, as indications of Hemmenhofen in February 1946. After the uncondi-
the artists personal situation. During this phase, the land- tional surrender of 8 May 1945, Germany was divided
scape was above all an autonomous picture between the up into four zones of occupation. World War II also left
ideal and nature, a symbolic compilation of naturalistic parts the country that started it with destroyed cities and mil-
- and in the end pure imagination that does not occur in lions of dead. The moral burden after twelve years of
nature but in the studio instead. His escape into the world National Socialist dictatorship was heavy. The victory
of the landscape can only be really seen in his rampantly of the anti-fascist alliance initially hid the contradictions
growing series of sketches, which the draughtsman jotted separating the capitalist western powers and the
down directly with a simple pencil and without stylistic atti- socialist Soviet Union. But as early as 1947, joint poli-
tudes. It almost seems as if Dix could deal with these cies concerning Germany were no longer possible.
chilling times in Gods open country bettler than in front of a The state of international relations grew worse
canvas in his studio. between the Fronts of the Cold War and shortly after
the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany
Christian symbols was proclaimed in the West in May 1949, the German
The Entarte Kunst exhibition, which toured Germany in Democratic Society was founded in the East. The gash
1937, made Dix official banning known throughout the that divided Germany soon became a territorial border.
country. His withdrawal to the art historical past art now During the next 50 years, this link through the centre of
took place on a new level. Dix turned explicitly to Chris- Europe was not only a seismographic mirror of the
tian subject matter, an area that he had not touched in power struggle between east and west but also the
over two decades. The infamously famous inventor of struggle for cultural hegemony.
intense scenes depicting urban life and war dealt with a Even considering the new geopolitical omens, Dix had
hand-picked selection of subjects from the old masters problems coming to terms with the loss of his adopted
for the first time, long after he became proficient in their hometown of Dresden. In 1949, he resumed his annual
painting and drawing techniques: Biblical images, Saints working visits to the city, a practice he kept up until
Anthony and Christopher, the Madonna, and the Evan- shortly before his death. As a man and a artist who con-
gelists John and Luke. Shortly before his late conscrip- stantly fell between two chairs, Dix moved between the
tion into the Volkssturm in March 1945, the list of sub- Fronts of Western Europes post-war abstract modernist
jects was widened to include representations of scenes painting and Eastern Europes Socialist Realism,
such as Christ carrying the cross, the Crucifixion of between denials in the Federal Republic of Germany
Christ, and the Resurrection of Christ. and demands from the German Democratic Republic.
The portraitist who was now condemned to landscape His stubborn comings and goings between frontiers and
painting tried to compensate for the watering down of his political styles made Otto Dix a lonely frontier crosser in
cache of ideas by adapting iconographical archetypes the post-war history of two Germanys.
from Christian allegories and parables - a path back to the
individual in existential situations. Religious metaphors Dresden redux
with more or less tangible references to his own life and Otto Dix War Triptych already moved to the centre of
times assumed an ever greater role in his works. public attention at the First Germany General Art Exhi-
In 1939, Dix painted the Old Testament story of Lot and bition in Dresden during the summer of 1946. Dix him-
his Daughters. The Chemnitz industrialist Fritz Niesch- self returned to his beloved Dresden during the fall of
er, who left the choice of subject up to the artist, com- 1947 and he was shocked at the extent of the destruc-
missioned the painting. The allegory of lasciviousness tion. Attempts to have him restored to his old profes-
became a symbol of fire in Dix treatment of the story. sorship at the newly reconstituted Hochschule der
As he already did as a child, Dix relocated the site of the Bildenden Knste (Visual Arts College) were unsuc-
biblical scene to his own home. Against the backdrop of cessful. The metropolis on the Elbe became his second
Dresden in flames, the work took on a prophetic quali- home again in 1949. Up to 1966, Dix spent at least sev-
ty: World War II began on 1 September 1939, a war in eral weeks a year there: As an active artist as well as
which the metropolis on the Elbe was destroyed in the guest star from the West. A large part of his late litho-
bombing raids of 13 and 14 February 1945. graphic oeuvre was produced in cooperation with Alfred
and Roland Erhardts print shop at the Art College. A
wide-ranging circle of old and new friends and espe-
VII Going back and forth between two cially his second family with Kthe Knig and their
Germanys 1946-1969 daughter Katharina tied him even to the city even fur-
I will not paint for them or for them. I am sorry. ther. He not only had to face all of the inner German
travel difficulties but also the repeated political and cul-
Dix in a divided Germany tural ice ages in East Germany. The most momentous,
Conscripted into the Volkssturm shortly before the known under the catchword of the Formalism Debate,
war ended in 1945, Dix was taken as a prisoner of war even shook official dealings with Critical Realism.
222
Expressive late works II, which he made the year before as a homage to his
The end of World War II meant another break for Otto Dix father. The jury of the annual exhibition put on by the
- one that went against his own work and the constraints Deutsche Knstlerbund (German Artists Alliance) in
of the time. He threw his old Renaissance junk over- 1953 did not pick his works for their show either. As a
board and turned to a heightened sense of expression kind of belated compensation for National Socialist
and a thick alla prima painting technique in which the oil censorship, Otto Dix as well as German painters like
paints were applied directly to the canvas with without pre- Paul Klee, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, und Max Beckmann
liminary coat of priming. Fired by a reawakened lust for were represented at the first documenta exhibition in
reality, the 55-year old homecoming soldier conquered Kassel, which Arnold Bode and Werner Haftmann pre-
pure painting. How he did it was once again more sented in 1955. But he was no longer present at the
important that what he did. This new way of seeing trig- second documenta curated by Will Grohmann in
gered an explosive productiveness. Between 1946 and 1959, which sounded the victory trumpets of Western
1949, he produced almost 150 paintings and an extraor- European Post-War Abstract art.
dinary convolute of pastel drawings. Dix developed a sty- In 1955, Dix was made a member of the Akademie der
listically sharpened and meaningful expressionistic verism Knste (Academy of the Arts) in Berlin-Dahlem. A year
that few other examples of German art of that time can be later, he was also made a corresponding member of the
compared with. By visualizing Christian iconography in Deutsche Akademie der Knste in East Berlin. The
current terms, he found contemporary symbols for crime East Berlin academy organized the first comprehensive
and punishment and for the rubble images of hope. retrospective in 1957. Along with Ernst Junger, Dix
Since 1950, transformations in theme, tone, and style received the Order of the Federal Republic of Germany
were very recognizable in his works. From Saxony to Alle- in 1959 from Kurt Georg Kiesinger, the Minister Presi-
mande, from the urban to the bucolic, from polemical real- dent of Baden-Wrttemberg and former member of the
ism to amusing expressiveness (and occasionally also to National Socialist Party
signs of fatigue). Just as before, people were at the cen- The first monograph to deal with Dix and his oeuvre by
tre of his oeuvre, but no longer as protagonists of critical Otto Conzelmann was published in Hanover in 1959
social scenarios but as figures that veer between alle- and a year later Fritz Lfflers standard reference work
gories and idylls. The portrait was still his main interest, on Dix was published in Dresden. Around the same
but he also devoted himself to religious subjects as well time, Dix was commissioned to create a mural dealing
as rural genre scenes, children and animals, still life paint- with the subject of war and peace for the main assem-
ings and landscapes. During the last decade of his life, bly room in the city hall of the Swabian town of Singen
Dix oeuvre encompassing Christian iconography and self- near Lake Constance. Along with 35 West German pro-
portraits experienced a sense of excitement once more. fessors, he signed an endorsement in July 1961 sup-
But when the new Dix appeared in the Dresden lime- porting opponents of atomic war in the general election
light for the first time in 1946, he aroused disappoint- for the Federal Parliament.
ment and rejection. His expressive stylistic language in During the 1950s and 1960s, Dix travelled to France and
the alla prima technique and religious motifs with a Italy. He was a guest in the Roman Villa Massimo in 1962,
cast of contemporary characters was not what people where he met and drew the author and East German
expected and was not what people wanted to see. Polit- refugee Uwe Johnson. During the last decade of his life,
ical polarisation in Germany made the debate about Dix an appreciation of his work grew in West Germany as well
even more scathing. Dix post-war style and subject as in East Germany, which led to many exhibitions and
matter remain the tinder for future controversies: Neo- honours. On his 75th birthday in 1966, the artist received
Expressionism and Christian allegories. A comprehen- the Alfred-Lichtwark-Preis in Hamburg as well as the
sive art historical analysis and appreciation of his late Martin-Andersen-Nex-Preis in Dresden. In addition, he
works is still a desideratum. was given the freedom of the city by his hometown Gera
in East Germany and was awarded the Goethe Founda-
Post war career tions Rembrandt Prize 1968 in Salzburg. In 1966, Dix vis-
Dix did not only start all over again artistically after ited Gera and Dresden for the last. In the fall of 1967, he
World War II. He also had to re-plan his career after suffered a first stroke that paralysed his left hand.
the twelve-year hiatus enforced upon him by the
National Socialist dictatorship. In addition to Dresden, Legacy and death
plans for two other professorships in East Berlin and in Otto Dix already drew his artistic legacy on stone in
Dsseldorf did not come off. In addition, initial plans in 1968: Self as Skull. As nowhere else, the dialectic of
the German Democratic Republic to make Dix a full the work of a lifetime between development and depar-
member of the Academy of the Arts in East Berlin ture digs into its own substance.
foundered. The III. Deutsche Kunstausstellung (Third Otto Dix died on 25 July 1969 in the hospital in Singen
German Art Exhibition in Dresden proclaimed the near Lake Constance after suffering a second stroke.
breakthrough of Socialist Realism in 1953 - without, He was buried three days later in the small cemetery in
however, showing Dix workers paintings Former I + Hemmenhofen.
223
1979 De Kooning,* Maestros del siglo XX. Naturaleza muerta,* IV Exposicin de Becarios de Artes Plsticas,
con texto de Diane Waldman. con texto de Reinhold Hohl. 1978-1979.*
Braque,* Arte Espaol Contemporneo,*
con textos de Jean Paulhan, Jacques Prvert, con texto de Julin Gllego.
Christian Zervos, Georges Salles,
Pierre Reverdy y Andr Chastel.
Goya, grabados (Caprichos, Desastres,
Disparates y Tauromaquia),
con texto de Alfonso E. Prez-Snchez.
1982 Piet Mondrian,* Medio Siglo de Escultura: 1900-1945,* Pintura Abstracta Espaola, 60/70,*
con textos del propio artista. con texto de Jean-Louis Prat. con texto de Rafael Santos Torroella.
Robert y Sonia Delaunay,*
con textos de Juan Manuel Bonet,
Jacques Damase, Vicente Huidobro,
Ramn Gmez de la Serna,
Isaac del Vando Villar y Guillermo de Torre.
Kurt Schwitters,*
con textos del propio artista,
Ernst Schwitters y Werner Schmalenbach.
* Catlogos agotados.
225
* Catlogos agotados.
226
1990 Odilon Redon,* Cubismo en Praga,* Col.lecci March Art Espanyol Contemporani.*
Coleccin Ian Woodner, Obras de la Galera Nacional, Palma de Mallorca,
con textos de Lawrence Gowing y con textos de Jiri Kotalik. con textos de Juan Manuel Bonet.
Odilon Redon.
Andy Warhol,*
Coleccin Daimler-Benz,
con texto de Werner Spies.
Rouault,*
con textos de Stephan Koja.
* Catlogos agotados.
** Museo de Arte Abstracto Espaol de Cuenca.
Museu dArt Espanyol Contemporani de Palma de Mallorca.
227
Paul Delvaux,*
con texto de Gisle Ollinger-Zinque.
Gottlieb monotipos,*
con textos de Sanford Hirsch.
Matisse: espritu y sentido,*
con textos de Guillermo Solana,
Marie-Thrse Pulvenis de Sligny
y del artista.
* Catlogos agotados.
** Museo de Arte Abstracto Espaol de Cuenca.
Museu dArt Espanyol Contemporani de Palma de Mallorca.
228
Gordillo Dplex,
con textos de Miguel Cereceda
y Jaime Gonzlez de Aledo.
Rostros y Mscaras,
Fotografas de la Coleccin Ordez- Falcn
con textos de Francisco Caja
229
CRDITOS
TEXTOS:
Ulrike Lorenz
TRADUCCIONES:
Rosa Pilar Blanco (alemn/espaol)
Michael Wolfson (alemn/ingls)
REVISIN DE TEXTOS:
Ins dOrs Lois
DISEO CATLOGO:
Jordi Teixidor
CRDITOS FOTOGRFICOS:
Archivo Otto Dix
Fundacin Otto Dix, Vaduz
SCHTTdesign, Gera
VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn
bpk/Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin/Joerg P. Anders
Markus Rave, Heidelberg
bpk/Neue Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin
Wolfram Schmidt, Ratisbona
Lothar Schnepf, Colonia
FOTOMECNICA:
Estudios Grficos Europeos, S.A.
SCHTTdesign, Gera
COMPOSICIN E IMPRESIN:
Estudios Grficos Europeos, S.A.
ENCUADERNACIN:
Ramos
231