Otto Dix

In this powerful watercolour Dix evokes the extraordinary atmosphere of metropolitan street life in post-World War I Weimar Germany. The bearded man with a wooden leg and a crutch for support, is positioned in the centre of the composition, a stark reminder of the suffering of the war-wounded, who returned from the front.  Wearing dark glasses to indicate his blindness and carrying a basket of matches, which he hopes to sell, he marks a strong contrast to the elegant display of the shop window behind him and the fashionably dressed passers-by in the street.

In Berlin, Dix's aggressive and brutal oils and watercolours of the disasters of war and his pictures of prostitutes and sex murders had led to a pornography charge being levied against him. He argued that he wanted to show the negative effects of prostitution on society. By reducing the references to the negative effects of war in this image to only one figure surrounded by a seemingly harmless, bourgeois street scene, the artist has create a powerful image of subtle accusation. The dolled-up woman in her fur collar and hat, bears similarities to the figure of the overdressed, veiled war widow in Dix's watercolour also of 1922 titled Strassenbild (fig. 1), now at the Galerie der Stadt Stuttgart.

This work was at some stage owned by the legendary art dealer Johanna 'Mutter' Ey (1864-1947). Her gallery Junge Kunst - Frau Ey in Dusselforf became the focal point for avant-garde painters and writers and she had an intuitive fell for the modern art of her day. She befreinded a number of artists and helped to nurture their talents, with figures frequenting her gallery ranging from Dix and Jawlensky to Max Ernst.

Fig. 1, Otto Dix, Strassenbild, 1922, watercolour on paper, Galerie der Stadt Stuttgart