There are very few books on Otto Dix.  Weimar painter par-excellence, it was perhaps Dix who – even more than his contemporaries, Christian Schad and George Grosz – best captured the spirit of Germany between the wars.  Dix, however, has become a victim of his own, first burst of fame, his violent and heartbreaking paintings of trench warfare seemingly relegated him to ‘war artist’, his later work often ignored in lieu of Schad, Grosz and Beckmann.  Certainly, there has been much published on Otto Dix, but too often, it has been divided into separate volumes, with Dix – The War Painter somehow seen as an entirely different entity to Dix – The Weimar Chronicler.  Not only does this divide fail to address his creative development, but it’s hard on the wallet: books on Dix have not been cheap, and  acquiring a definitive collection of his work has been an investment that only his die-hard fans are willing to make.

“Portrait of Sylvia von Harden”

Thankfully, our good friends at Taschen have put all this to right. Dix, by Eva Karcher, is the definitive book on the painter.  Spanning his career from his psychologically disturbing trench paintings to his religious images of the 1940s and landscapes of the ‘50s, Karcher’s work takes us – not only on a journey through an artist’s career – but through early 20^th century German history: World War One, the Weimar Republic, and  - of course - the terrible aftermath.

“Weimar Berlin, according to Otto Dix”

Karcher’s narrative focuses equally on all three of the main criterion of an art historical study: biography, technique and social setting, the attention given to Dix’s  Neue Sachlichkeit  (New Objectivity) period at last setting the artist on the same ground as his Weimar contemporaries.  Yes, we all know his Portrait of the Journalist Sylvia Von Harden (1926), but how many of us are familiar with the wonderful Three Prostitutes in the Street (1925) or the wonderfully grotesque Still Life in a Studio (1924.)  Karcher sets out to redress the balance, her lively, informative and highly personal style bringing both the painter – and his œuvre – to life.

Karcher’s book is laden with beautiful reproductions, most of them in colour and many full-page.  As always, Taschen respects its reader as much as its subject; this is a quality art book at a pocket-money price, a definitive record of one of Germany’s most gifted painters.

“Skat Players”

The world of Otto Dix is not for the squeamish; from the horribly disfigured war wounded of his heart-wrenching Skat Players (1920), to his series of Murder sketches, it is easy to shy away from Otto Dix, taking refuge in the subtler, sardonic pastures of George Grosz or pleasures of Schad’s more ‘painterly’ technique.  Karcher’s Dix makes it impossible to flee.

 Life may not have been a cabaret for Otto Dix, but it is certainly not to be missed.

• Click here to learn more about Eva Karcher’s book.