Otto Dix was born in Germany on December of 1891. He was the oldest son of Louise and Franz. His mother was a seamstress and his father toiled in an iron foundry. Otto Dix spent countless hours expose to art at an early age with his cousin Fritz Amann. Fritz painted landscapes, Dix began as an apprentice with the landscape painter Carl Senff at age fifteen. He later joined the Kunstgewerbeshchule at age nineteen in an academy of applied arts. In the early 20th century he began his own road painting landscapes.
World War I was greeted with joy by many capitols of Europe. In August 1914 war was declared and Dix enlisted in the German Army. He served on the frontlines on both the western and eastern battles, he reached the rank of Vizfeledwebel, …show more content…
His paintings described anger against Germany in the way they treated wounded and crippled ex-soldiers. Painting such as Butcher’s Shop (1920), War Cripples (1920), and War wounded (1922). Despite the reflections in his paintings only one would cause commotion, known as The Trench. The painting illustrated, “harsh realistic depiction, where destruction could have been avoided,” these were the effects of WWI. In 1923 his painting was purchased by the Wallraf-Richartz Museum, the painting was exhibited in 1924 were it received a public outcry of removal for its depiction of decomposed corpses, the museum’s director was force to resign and his painting had been destroyed. Dix continue to paint and became a professor at the academy in Dresden (1927) soon after he was elected to the Prussian Academy (1931). In Nazi Germany, the regime incensed his anti-military art works and stripped his professorship. His family was forced to emigrate but he refused knowing his current painting could be destroyed. He sent to jail in 1939 on charges of plotting Adolf Hitler’s life, he was drafted in 1945 into the home guard army at age 53. Captured and release by the French troops during the collapse of the Reich, he turned to religious mysticism, “Saul and David” (1945) and Crucifixion” (1946). He spent most of his time in a French P.O.W. camp until he died in