Dix, Otto (1891-1969)

German painter. He was a major exponent of the harsh realism current in Germany in the 1920s and closely associated with the Neue Sachlichkeit group. He is known chiefly for his unsettling 1920s paintings of prostitutes and sex murders and for his powerful series of works depicting the hell of trench warfare, for example Flanders: After Henri Barbusse ‘Le Feu’ (1934-36; Nationalgalerie, Berlin).

Dix was a considerable portraitist, as exemplified in Dr Heinrich Stadelmann (1920; Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto), and he also painted allegorical works in a style reminiscent of 16th-century Flemish and Italian masters. He trained at the art academies of Dresden and Dusseldorf, and his early work shows the influence of Kokoschka and Italian Futurism. In 1933 he was dismissed from his teaching post at the Dresden Art Academy by the Nazis, and branded a decadent. His experiences as a serving soldier in World War I and as a prisoner-of-war 1945-46 instilled in him a profound horror of armed conflict.