A picture book that artist Otto Dix painted for his five-year-old stepdaughter, Hana Koch, is on view in Dusseldorf this month, a rare collection of watercolors that has never been shown. “Twenty years ago, Hana showed us one page, so we knew it was there,” says Herbert Remmert of the Dusseldorf Galerie Remmert und Barth, where the book is on view. (more…)
Workers renovating the former residence of Otto Dix have uncovered six murals by the artist. The home is being turned into a museum, to be run by the Stuttgart Kuntmuseum. The Carneval-themed pieces, most likely from 1966, were behind a bookcase in the cellar library and are incredibly well-preserved. The museum will open in June 2013. (more…)
Gallery in Berlin discovers four paintings by Otto Dix worth over $1 million [AO Newslink]
Hannah Hoch, Roma (1925). Via Focus.de
Chaos and Classicism: Art in France, Italy, and Germany, 1918-1936, currently on at the Guggenheim, is more history lesson than study of art object. A mix of known artists with the unknown, names like Hannah Hoch, Picasso and the little remembered Amleto Cataldi (whose third Google result is someone’s Facebook profile) are shown contextualized within this period of political transformation. Curated by Kenneth E. Silver—author of Esprit de Corps: The Art of the Parisian Avant-Garde and the First World War, 1914-1925, which is considered an authority on interwar modernism—Chaos and Classicism offers an illustration of how art can just as easily support, as it does challenge, institutional power. Traveling up the Guggenheim’s ramp, the exhibition lays bare the changing sentiment of the period—from a reliance on the order and beauty of Classicism after the horrors of the first world war to fascism’s adoption of those same classical themes for world take over.
More text and images after the jump…
Otto Dix, Portrait of the Lawyer Dr. Hugo Simons (1925) All images via Neue Galerie
Currently on view at the Neue Galerie is an exhibition featuring the work of German artist, Otto Dix (1891-1969). The show was organized by Olaf Peters, Professor of Art History at Martin Luther University in Halle-Wittenberg, Germany. Following its run at Neue Galerie, the show will travel to the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. The exhibition is the first solo museum show of Dix’s work in North America. Although widely regarded as one of the most important artists of the 20th century in Europe, Dix has been slower to attain widespread appreciation among American audiences. The 100 plus works featured in this exhibition, which include drawings and paintings, emphasize Dix’s ability to portray the often brutal realities of his time, with the cynicism and satire which characterized the “New Objectivity” movement.
