Otto Dix and Weimar Media Culture; Time, Fashion and Photography in Portrait Paintings of the Neue Sachlichkeit (German Visual Culture, Volume 11)

Otto Dix (1891-1969) was a leading figure of the Neue Sachlichkeit movement in painting in 1920s Germany. This groundbreaking study analyses for the first time in depth the relationship between Dix's verist-realist portrait paintings and the rapidly expanding mass media culture of the Weimar era. Focusing on a selection of portraits created in the first half of the 1920s, the book explores four specific aspects: the way in which Dix engaged with fashion and celebrity culture; how he responded to the challenge posed by photography; how he dealt with a situation where black-and-white reproductions were the most common medium through which diverse audiences encountered his work, and the ways in which Dix's career development ran in parallel with the commentary on his artistic production in journalistic and specialist media publications. Temporality, medium-specificity and reproduction are identified as concerns that drove his aesthetic responses to a historically specific environment. New archival material, letters and interviews by the artist, and a wide range of publications by art critics, cultural theorists and art historians of the Weimar era are drawn on to reveal new information about key paintings such as Self-Portrait with Nude Model (1923) and Portrait of the Dancer Anita Berber (1925). Otto Dix (1891-1969) was a leading figure of the Neue Sachlichkeit movement in painting in 1920s Germany. This groundbreaking study analyses for the first time in depth the relationship between Dix's verist-realist portrait paintings and the rapidly expanding mass media culture of the Weimar era.0Focusing on a selection of portraits created in the first half of the 1920s, the book explores four specific aspects: the way in which Dix engaged with fashion and celebrity culture; how he responded to the challenge posed by photography; how he dealt with a situation where black-and-white reproductions were the most common medium through which diverse audiences encountered his work, and the ways in which Dix's career development ran in parallel with the commentary on his artistic production in journalistic and specialist media publications. Temporality, medium-specificity and reproduction are identified as concerns that drove his aesthetic responses to a historically specific environment.0New archival material, letters and interviews by the artist, and a wide range of publications by art critics, cultural theorists and art historians of the Weimar era are drawn on to reveal new information about key paintings such as Self-Portrait with Nude Model (1923) and Portrait of the Dancer Anita Berber (1925) "Otto Dix (1891-1969) was a leading figure of the Neue Sachlichkeit, or New Objectivity, movement in painting in 1920s Germany. This groundbreaking study analyses for the first time the relationship between Dix's verist-realist portrait paintings and the rapidly expanding mass media culture of the Weimar era that surrounded it. The book focuses on a small number of portrait paintings created in the first half of the 1920s to explore four specific aspects: the way Dix engaged with fashion and celebrity culture; how he responded to the challenge posed by photography and film; how he dealt with a situation where black-and-white reproductions were the most common way in which a diverse audience encountered his work; and the way in which Dix's career development ran in parallel with the commentary on his work in journalistic and specialist media publications. Temporality, medium-specificity and reproduction are identified as concerns that drove the artist's aesthetic responses to a historically specific environment. The book draws upon archival material, letters and interviews by the artist, and a broad variety of contemporary publications by art critics and art historians to reveal new information about key paintings such as his Portrait of the Dancer Anita Berber (1925)"-- Provided by publisher Dedication 6 Contents 8 List of Illustrations 10 Acknowledgements 18 Introduction 20 1. Inscribing Temporality, Containing Fashion: Otto Dix’s Portrait of the Dancer Anita Berber Recontextualised 34 2. ‘Material Verism’: Medium- Specificity and Haptic Effects in Self-Portrait with Nude Model and Portrait Mrs Martha Dix 88 3. Reproductive Optics: Otto Dix’s Portrait of the Poet Herbert Eulenberg and Painting in Reproduction 168 4. Otto Dix with ‘Retrospective Flavour’: The Language of Temporality and the Temporality of Language in the Print Media 240 Conclusion 302 Bibliography 308 Index 328