  About the Artwork
  
  
  Otto Dix painted this exacting self-portrait in 1912, heralding a new approach to painting that he and other artists would fully develop in Germany in the wake of World War I. Characterized by a heightened realism and a devotion to portraiture, the movement reflected a disillusionment with prewar expressionist idealism and came to be known as Neue Sachlichkeit (The New Objectivity).  

The twenty-one-year-old artist portrays himself sporting a dark-brown corduroy jacket and a closely cropped hairstyle evocative of the medieval era, standing against a deserted, uniformly blue background. Dix depicts in minute detail the texture of his clothes and his concentrated — even ferocious — facial expression. However, the effect is not that of illusionistically portrayed reality. Rather, the sitter’s exaggerated appearance distills his fierce determination and projects his ambition. Like other younger German artists of the period, Dix looked to Northern Renaissance painters like Lucas Cranach the Elder, Hans Baldung Grien, and Albrecht Dürer for inspiration. He appropriated a motif of carnation employed by these artists to symbolize love, faithfulness, and devotion. He also approximated their technique by applying his paint in multiple layers, which concealed the brushwork and produced a smooth and luminous surface.
  
  
  Title
  Self-Portrait
  
  
  Artwork Date
  1912
  
  Artist
  Otto Dix
  
  
  
  Life Dates
  1891-1969
  
  
  
  
  Nationality
  
  
  
  Please note:
  Definitions for nationality may vary significantly, depending on chronology and world events.
  Some definitions include:
  Belonging to a people having a common origin based on a geography and/or descent and/or tradition and/or culture and/or religion and/or language, or sharing membership in a legally defined nation.
  
  
  
  German
  
  
  
  Culture
  
  
  
  Please note:
  Cultures may be defined by the language, customs, religious beliefs, social norms, and material traits of a group.
  
  
  
  
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  Medium
  Oil on paper mounted on poplar panel
  
  
  Dimensions
  Unframed: 29 × 19 1/2 inches (73.7 × 49.5 cm)
  Framed: 34 5/8 × 25 1/2 × 3 1/2 inches (87.9 × 64.8 × 8.9 cm)
  
  
  Classification
  Paintings
  
  
  Department
  European Modern Art to 1970
  
  
  Credit
  Gift of Robert H. Tannahill
  
  
  
  Accession Number
  
  
  
  This unique number is assigned to an individual artwork as part of the cataloguing process at the time of entry into the permanent collection.
  Most frequently, accession numbers begin with the year in which the artwork entered the museum’s holdings.
  For example, 2008.3 refers to the year of acquisition and notes that it was the 3rd of that year. The DIA has a few additional systems—no longer assigned—that identify specific donors or museum patronage groups.
  
  
  
  51.65
  
  
  Copyright
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