The Online Otto Dix Project

Description: Fritz Glaser was a wealthy Jewish lawyer and a modern art collector. That was two strikes against him when the Nazis came to power. He survived the Holocaust but his art collection was scattered. After the war he tried to track it down. This piece was hidden in plain sight at the Freiburg Museum of Modern Art. The museum bought it at auction from a private collector in 1959. Glaser may have sold it under duress as financial pressures mounted as a result of his racial persecution but the Freiburg Museum appears unwilling to further investigate and confirm its provenance.

Description: By 1920, Dix was associated with the Berlin Dadaists. In the summer of that year, he exhibited this painting, the War Cripples, there. Unlike many works on display, this one avoided official controversy although it clearly blamed the military for butchering a generation. Others on display were not as fortunate. The military filed charges of insult against several artists at the exhibition.

When Hitler rose to power, Dix was forbidden to exhibit his work but Nazis were under no such restriction. In 1933, this painting was siezed and displayed in the Nazi's Degenerate Art exhibition. It was captioned, "Slander against the German Heroes of the World War."

The reproduction seen here was taken from a period photograph. The War Cripples disappeared after the Degenerate Art exhibition. It's location is currently unknown and it is presumed destroyed.

Description: This mutilated veteran is a pitiful character. The war has taken limbs and vision. His deformities are highly visible yet the only attention he draws is from a Daschund who pees on his stumps.

Description: Otto Dix was the son of working class parents. His father Franz was a foundry worker and his mother Louise was a hausfrau.

Description: Doctor Koch was a kidney and bladder specialist in Dusseldorf. He is depicted in a menacing chamber of medical equipment. Dix befriended the Doctor then took Frau Doctor to his bed. When Dix returned to Dresden, Martha Koch followed him. She left her husband and two children behind. The Doctor was unperturbed because he had already begun an affair with Maria Lindner, his wife's older sister. Dix and Koch became brothers-in-law and remained friends until the Doctor's death in 1952.

Description: Unlike its European counterparts, the German middle class did not seek distinction granted by royalty. Before the War, for example, Oscar Huldschinsky refused the Kronenorden by saying, "If no one has thought to honor my contribution to German Industry, I'm not going to accept a medal just because I went boating with the Kaiser." The title most sought by businessmen was Kommerzialrat. For lawyers it was Justizrat. Such titles were so coveted that wives were often addressed with their husband's title, hence Frau Doctor Hans Koch. "Doctor" was removed when she became Frau Dix.

Description: Four prostitutes sit around a table and wait for business. Each is past her prime; they all wear cheap finery which fails to hide their years. What opportunities are there for aging prostitutes? (Salon II was lost or destroyed).

Description: Dr. Heinrich Stadelmann was a clinincal psychologist and a specialist in nervous systems. His sessions often included hypnotic therapy. In this portrait he appears both mad and under the spell of his own hypnotic trance. His eyes bulge and glitter. His fists are clenched and his posture is tense. What demons lurk beneath that morbid exterior? It's as though Dix turned tables on the doctor released them with his own psychological examination.

Description: In many ways this was a typical piece from the period after the war, especially as an example of civilian motif. Roesberg stands in a sparse office surrounded by objects associated with his occupation. He is depicted in three-quarter view which was common in Dix's work from this period. Yet one is struck by a complete lack of movement. The lines and colors are static. The outlines of shadow are precise. This was an exact moment in time captured by the calendar, the clock on the wall and the artist who painted them.

Description: Adolf Uzarski was a German artist, illustrator and writer associated with the New Objectivity movement. In 1906, he moved to Düsseldorf where he enroled in the School of Arts and Crafts.

Like many young artists in Düsseldorf at the time, Uzarski spent a great deal of time in Johanna Ey's cafe. It was here that he met Otto Dix. Uzarski soon became one of the artists championed by Mother Ey. Otto Dix was another.

Uzarski was a handsome man whose attractiveness was lost by Dix's rendition. Here is rendered as a sort of subterranean troll with large hands and a greenish complexion.