Museum Gunzenhauser
Presentation of the Collection

Otto Dix and New Objectivity

Otto Dix and New Objectivity

From 25 February 2026

After expressionist, futurist and Dadaist beginnings in Otto Dix’s artistic work, a noticeable formal calmness emerged around 1921. The artist developed his own unique critical realism, combining old master techniques with biting social criticism, and became one of the most important protagonists of New Objectivity. Immediately after the National Socialists came to power, he was the first German artist to be dismissed from his professorship at the academy in Dresden. He fled with his family to Hemmenhofen on Lake Constance and withdrew into internal emigration in the rural surroundings. Having lost his most important source of inspiration, the milieu of the big city, he now mainly produced landscape paintings, executed in the elaborate glazing technique of old German panel painting. In these compositions, created in his studio, Dix reflected on current political events with the help of menacing forces of nature.

The collection presentation focuses on Dix’s landscape paintings from between 1933 and 1945. The exhibition is complemented by New Objectivity paintings by Otto Dix, Karl Hubbuch, Georg Schrimpf, Max Peiffer-Watenphul and Gustav Wunderwald.

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Gallery

Otto Dix, Begräbnis, 1941, Mischtechnik auf Leinwand auf Holz, Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz - Museum Gunzenhauser, Eigentum der Stiftung Gunzenhauser, Chemnitz, Foto: Archiv Museum Gunzenhauser © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2026
Otto Dix
Begräbnis, 1941
Otto Dix, Düstere Landschaft, 1940, Mischtechnik auf Holz, 65 x 85 cm, Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz – Museum Gunzenhauser, Eigentum der Stiftung Gunzenhauser, Foto: Archiv © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2026
Otto Dix
Düstere Landschaft, 1940
Otto Dix (1891–1969), Mädchen am Sonntag, 1921, Öl auf Leinwand auf Pappe auf Pressspan, 83,2 x 66 cm (restaurierte Leinwand), Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz – Museum Gunzenhauser, Eigentum der Stiftung Gunzenhauser, Chemnitz, Foto: Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz/László Tóth © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2026
Otto Dix (1891–1969)
Mädchen am Sonntag, 1921
Otto Dix, Bildnis des Malers Zienert, 1914, Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz-Museum Gunzenhauser, Eigentum der Stiftung Gunzenhauser, Chemnitz, Foto: Archiv Museum Gunzenhauser © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2024 © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2026
Otto Dix
Bildnis des Malers Zienert, 1914
Max Peiffer Watenphul, Industrielandschaft, 1935, Öl auf Leinwand, 98 x 112 cm, Privatsammlung, Foto: Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz/Frank Krüger © Diana Pasqualucci, Rom
Max Peiffer Watenphul
Industrielandschaft, 1935
Gustav Wunderwald, Fabrik an der Lindower Straße, Berlin N, 1927, Öl auf Leinwand, Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz-Museum Gunzenhauser, Eigentum der Stiftung Gunzenhauser, Chemnitz, Foto: Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz/Archiv
Gustav Wunderwald
Fabrik an der Lindower Straße, Berlin N, 1927