Lot 158 D

Beginning in the works of the late 1940s, a new life-affirming optimism becomes perceptible in Otto Dix's oeuvre. Works conveying a sense of liberation and featuring luminous colours and loose brushwork replace the war years' painting in layered glazes in the manner of the old masters. Thematically, he concentrated on likenesses and rural motifs. “The figural compositions did not prevent Dix from immersing himself in the life that surrounded him in Hemmenhofen. Looking at his far-ranging groups of themes it instead seems as though the catastrophe of war and interment that had suddenly broken in upon him and the good fortune of being permitted to once again return back to his life opened his eyes to much that he had passed by until 1944 or which he had at least not considered it important to depict.” (Fritz Löffler, Otto Dix. Leben und Werk, Dresden 1977, p. 125).
The artist was evidently particularly fascinated by the splendidly colourful figure of the cock. His late work also includes other paintings with this animal in the leading role, some of which were also converted into colour lithographs - for example, “Petrus und der Hahn”, 1950 (Löffler 1950/4), and the eponymous colour lithograph from 1958 (Karsch 225).