Otto Dix: Controversial painter of the New Objectivity movement

Otto Dix was born in 1891 and was a German painter and printmaker. He was well known for his ruthless and harshly realistic depictions of German society during the Weimar Republic and the overall brutality of war. Together with Max Beckmann and George Grosz, he is considered to be one of the most important artists of the movement of the so called “Neue Sachlichkeit“ (“New Objectivity“). His experiences of World War I influenced him greatly as a painter and his first great subjects were crippled soldiers. Later on he also painted nudes and often savagely satirical portraits of celebrities from Germany’s intellectual circles. In the early 1930s, he became a target of the Nazis and his work became darker and more allegorical. Slowly but gradually he moved away from social themes and turned to draw Christian subjects and landscapes.