Description: At twenty-two Albrecht Dürer painted the Self-portrait with Carnation (1493, Louvre), probably to send to a new fiancée. At twenty-one, Dix knodded in the master's direction when he painted a similar motif.

Description: In the first year of war, Dix painted himself twice on one piece of paper. On this side, he is depicted in hellish combat with red and white flashes and eyes wide open.

Description: The other side of the piece above. A worried Dix is pictured in darkness in stark contrast with the gold insignia on his uniform.

Description: In the second year of war, he depcits himself as the God of War with angles borrowed from cubism. In this scene, death is abundant. Horses rear and flee. Buildings burst open and cities crumble. Yet Dix remains alive. Survival under such circumstances might give anyone a messiah complex.

Description: The Foundry was hot and the air was foul but it supported the family. Otto's father toiled there for most of his life. Its bricks are dark from soot and its yard is filled with scrap, yet through the Dixian filter, the Foundry is quite attractive.

Description: The war has left them crippled and deformed but their capacity to play skat remains in tact. It is a three-handed card game favored by the Krupps, German manufacturers of the types of weapons that misfigured men such as these.

Description: Along Prague Street, deformed men beg for money and attention. A woman in a tight pink dress has no time for them. The Nationalists do. Beside one veteran is a pamphlet entitled, "Jews Out!" The Nazis were not yet a National movement but one of their basic tenets was beginning to disseminate.

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.