21 Facts About Otto Dix

Otto Dix was born in Untermhaus, Germany, now a part of the city of Gera, Thuringia.

Otto Dix was assigned to a field artillery regiment in Dresden.

Otto Dix earned the Iron Cross, 2nd class, and reached the rank of vizefeldwebel.

Otto Dix took part in an anti-aircraft course in Tongern, was promoted to Vizefeldwebel and after passing the medical tests transferred to Aviation Replacement Unit Schneidemuhl in Posen.

Otto Dix was discharged from service on 22 December 1918 and was home for Christmas.

Otto Dix was profoundly affected by the sights of the war, and later described a recurring nightmare in which he crawled through destroyed houses.

Otto Dix represented his traumatic experiences in many subsequent works, including a portfolio of fifty etchings called Der Krieg, published in 1924.

Otto Dix became a founder of the Dresden Secession group in 1919, during a period when his work was passing through an expressionist phase.

Otto Dix participated in the German Expressionists exhibition in Darmstadt that year.

Otto Dix met metalsmith Martha Koch in 1921, and they married in 1923.

Otto Dix's 1923 painting The Trench, which depicted dismembered and decomposed bodies of soldiers after a battle, caused such a furor that the Wallraf-Richartz Museum hid the painting behind a curtain.

Otto Dix was a contributor to the Neue Sachlichkeit exhibition in Mannheim in 1925, which featured works by George Grosz, Max Beckmann, Heinrich Maria Davringhausen, Karl Hubbuch, Rudolf Schlichter, Georg Scholz and many others.

Otto Dix drew attention to the bleaker side of life, unsparingly depicting prostitution, violence, old age, and death.

Otto Dix later moved to Lake Constance in the southwest of Germany.

Otto Dix still painted an occasional allegorical painting that criticized Nazi ideals.

Otto Dix was captured by French troops at the end of the war and released in February 1946.

Otto Dix eventually returned to Dresden and remained there until 1966.

Otto Dix received the Lichtwark Prize in Hamburg and the Martin Andersen Nexo Art Prize in Dresden to mark his 75th birthday in 1967.

Otto Dix died on 25 July 1969 after a second stroke in Singen am Hohentwiel.

Otto Dix had three children: a daughter Nelly and two sons, Ursus and Jan.

The Museum Haus Otto Dix was inaugurated in 2013 in the house where the artist lived with his family and where he worked from 1936 to 1969, in Hemmenhofen, south Germany.