Otto Dix
German, 1891 - 1969For Matthäus Evangelium (The Gospel of Matthew), 1960
Not on view
Lithograph on paper
Dimensions11 3/8 × 9 in. (28.9 × 22.9 cm)
Gift of Mr. Jack B. Pierson in memory of Mr. Robert Martin Purcell, 1979.25
The lithograph, For Matthaus Evangelium, uses a technique that was invented by A. Senefelder in 1798. The design is drawn with a greasy chalk on a flat zinc plate (at first, it was on porous limestone), which is then wetted. The water runs off the chalked areas but not the stone, as grease and water do not mix. Paper is then pressed to the stone creating an image.
Otto Dix was a German painter, printmaker and watercolorist. His initial training (1905–14) in Gera and Dresden was as a painter of wall decorations, but he taught himself the techniques of easel painting and began concentrating on portraits and landscapes influenced by northern Renaissance prototypes. After seeing exhibitions of paintings by Vincent van Gogh, he quickly fused these influences into a randomly colored expression of his inner feelings. Volunteering as a machine-gunner during World War I, he served in the German army (1914–18), making innumerable sketches of war scenes. The experience of war, moreover, became a dominant motif of his work until the 1930s.
