1891, Untermhaus bei Gera1969, Singen/Hohentwiel

Biography

1891

Born on December 2 as son of a working family

1905-1909

Apprenticeship as an ornamental painter

1909-1914

Student at the arts and crafts school in Dresden. Dix gets influenced by Impressionism and by emerging Expressionism. Since 1912, he studies German Renaissance-Painting as well as cubistic, futuristic and later dadaistic design

1914-1918

Dix volunteers for military service. He is based in France and Russia. The cruel experiences during war strongly influence his work as a painter

1919

In cooperation with Conrad Felixmüller (1897-1977) he founds the “Gruppe 1919” Dresdner-Secession

1920

Dix paints critical dadaistic society collages

1925-1927

Returns to Berlin, where his critical-analytic paintings reach their climax

1926-1933

Professor at the art academy, Dusseldorf

1933-1939

Suspension of staff, because of the National Socialists, his work is titled as “entartet” and some works are destroyed. Dix leaves Dresden and moves to Castle Randegg close to Singen, afterwards he moves to Hemmenhofen at the Bodensee, where he focuses on painting landscapes. Dix gets associated with a failed assassination of Adolf Hitler in 1939 and is temporally arrested

1945

Dix has to go to the „Volkssturm“ and gets arrested in Alsace

1959

Awarded the Federal Cross of Merit. Honors in East and West Germany

1966

Alfred Lichtwark Prize, Hamburg and honorary citizen of Gera

1969

Dix dies on the 25th of July in Singen, Hohentwiel