Match. Otto Dix and the Art of Portraiture

Nothing fascinates and captivates our attention as strongly as the sight of another person. Through the comparison with others, we recognize ourselves. Portrait painting is thus one of the oldest forms of art. An Egyptian mummy portrait from the first century formed the prelude to the exhibition “Match. Otto Dix and the Art of Portraiture” in the Kunstmuseum Stuttgart. The focal point, however, was one of the most unerring portraitists of the twentieth century: displayed on more than 1,000 square meters were 64 paintings by Otto Dix, including 40 works on loan from museums such as the Metropolitan Museum in New York and the Galerie Neue Meister in Dresden.

With this show, the Kunstmuseum Stuttgart with its most important Otto Dix collection worldwide put his portrait art at the center of a large exhibition for the first time. The exhibition juxtaposed the works of Otto Dix with 88 additional portraits by artists from Lucas Cranach to Andy Warhol. The encounter with paintings by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Oskar Kokoschka, Erich Heckel, and Francis Bacon and works by contemporary artists such as Duane Hanson, Gerhard Richter, or Wolfgang Tillmanns illuminated the significance of the portraitist Otto Dix over time.