Hugo Erfurth
Otto Dix
1933/34
Vintage gelatin silver print. 28.2 x 22.8 cm. Photographer's blindstamp lower right. Address stamp of the estate of Otto Dix on the verso. - Small crease and tiny stain in the lower right area of the image..
The close-up portrait of the artist Otto Dix wearing a painter's smock, presumably taken by Hugo Erfurth in 1933/34, pertains "to the most astonishing works of his factual-veristic phase.“ (1) Against a neutral background, the striking face appears sharply defined and of almost palpable plasticity, the eyes fixating their counterpart in a penetrating and analytical manner. The extraordinarily close bond between Erfurth and Dix persisted between 1920 and 1937. During this period, Dix commissioned a number of portaits by Erfurt, of himself, his wife Martha and their children. Conversely, Dix captured the photographer's physiognomy in two of his important modernist paintings.
(1) Dietrich Schubert, "Ein harter Mann, dieser Maler…". Otto Dix - photographiert von Hugo Erfurth, in: Dewitz/Schuller-Procopovici (Hg.) 1992, a.a.O., S. 93.
Provenance
Estate of Otto Dix
Literature
Bodo von Dewitz/Karin Schuller-Procopovici (ed.), Hugo Erfurth 1874-1948. Photograph zwischen Tradition und Moderne, exhib.cat. Agfa-Foto-Historama im Wallraf-Richartz-Museum/Museum Ludwig Cologne, Cologne 1992, ill. p. 305