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Otto DIX

Germany 1891 – 1969

  • Movements: Switzerland


Verwundeter (Herbst 1916, Bapaume)
[Wounded soldier - Autumn 1916, Bapaume], plate 6 from Der Krieg 1924
  • plate 6 from the portfolio Der Krieg [War], a portfolio of 50 prints in 5 parts, plus 1 additional print
 Print, Intaglio
Technique: etching, aquatint
Edition: ed. 58/70
Publisher: Verlag Karl Nierendorf
Primary Insc: l.l.c - 58/70; l.c - VI; l.r.c - signed in pencil by the artist
printing plate 19.7 h x 29.0 w cm
sheet size max 35.3 h x 47.5 w cm
The Poynton Bequest 2003
Accession No: NGA 2003.352.6
Subject: Art style: Expressionism
© Otto Dix. Licensed by Viscopy

MORE DETAIL

Otto Dix seems to cry out through his images: 'Trust me. This is what really happened. I was there.' After volunteering for the German army at the outbreak of the First World War in 1914 he was sent to the Western Front and fought as a lance corporal in a field artillery regiment in Champagne, Artois, and the Somme. As an eyewitness to some of the most horrific events of the First World War, he is putting them on the record: these soldiers were actually buried alive; this is what dying from poison gas was like; this is what a dead horse looks like; these were the expressions on the faces of the wounded. This image is reminiscent of plate 69 in Goya's series, The disasters of war, which Goya titled, '"Nothing!" That is what it says'.
See plate 69 in Goya's series, The disasters of war at bridgeman.co.uk


Text © National Gallery of Australia, Canberra 2010