Stairs to the shelter

Details

Inscribed by an unknown hand on the reverse “Männer auf der Treppe”. Lorenz WK 7.0.3. Literature: Conzelmann, Otto, Otto Dix. Handzeichnungen, Hannover 1968, no. 48, with black and white ill.; Kinkel, Hans, Otto Dix. Protokolle der Hölle. Zeichnungen, Frankfurt/Main et. al. 1968, with black and white ill. 50; Conzelmann, Otto, Der andere Dix. Sein Bild vom Menschen und vom Krieg, Stuttgart 1983, with black and white ill. 144, p. 101; Jürgens-Kirchhoff, Annegret, Schreckensbilder. Krieg und Kunst im 20. Jahrhundert, Berlin 1993, ill. 134; Van Lil, Kira, Otto Dix und der Erste Weltkrieg. Die Natur des Menschen in der Ausnahmesituation, Munich 1999, ill. 287. Exhibitions:Otto Dix. Handzeichnungen 1912-1961, Kultet. al.t der Stadt Singen, 1961, cat. no. 21, with black and white ill. (“Der Schützengraben”); Otto Dix. Gemälde, Handzeichnungen. Lithographien, 7. Kunstausstellung der Großen Kreisstadt Schwenningen a.N., Städtisches Kulturamt, Schwenningen 1964, cat. no.20;Otto Dix. Aquarelle, Zeichnungen, Radierfolge ‚Der Krieg‘, Museum Folkwang, Essen 1971, cat. no.37, with black and white ill.;Otto Dix. acquerelli, disegni, incisioni, Deutsche Bibliothek Rome et. al., Rome 1972, presumably cat. no.37 (not ill.).Provenance:Galerie Kornfeld, Bern 19.6.1991, lot 362, with black and white ill., plate 23;Galerie Welz, Salzburg;Ahlers Collection/Adolf Ahlers AG, Herford; Salzburger Landessammlungen, Rupertinum, Salzburg (on loan from the Ahlers Collection); private collection, Northern Germany; Karl & Faber, 12.6.2015, lot 509; private collection, Munich.

Description

Otto Dix documented the years of the First World War, which were characterised by death, fear and terrible misery, in his art more than almost any other artist. His rational and unconditionally realistic view reflects the horrors in an unembellished and unfiltered way. The large-format ink sheets that Dix painted in the last year of the war depict moving scenarios that are largely freed from any representationalism. He depicts the unembellished, painful reality of the war in an almost abstract manner and stylises it into a surreal doomsday atmosphere with a gloomy vision of the end times.