Glitter and Doom

As mentioned in the previous post, my time in NYC included seeing an amazing show with Suzanne at the Met called Glitter and Doom, which was all portrait paintings and drawings from Germany's Weimar years. Over 100 works, about half from Otto Dix, and also cool stuff from George Grosz, Max Beckmann, and several other artists. Up top is a preparatory drawing by Dix for his triptych painting Metropolis. As mounted, the drawing triptych is a monumental 6 feet high and about 10 feet wide, a scale that allows for incredible detail and impact. Unfortunately this show closes on Feb 19, so if you want to see it you better get there soon.

I wouldn't say that Dix and his contemporaries are direct influences, but I've long felt a kinship for these guys. Maybe a decade or so ago I gave some thought to where my art fits in to the history of art, mostly to make it easier to describe to people what my art is like. The most common comparisons that I hear are German Expressionism and Pop Art. These two movements are definitely influences, but I don't think either is a truly accurate classification for what I do. My art is firmly rooted in Modernism, so I started looking through 20th century history. In the end, what I seemed to have the most in common with (especially with my portrait prints) is the movement in 1920's Germany called Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity). My subjects are not the lowlife society fringe that Dix specialized in, but my approach is a kind of psychological realism that is common to the work in this show.

Seeing all these portrait paintings and drawings makes me more excited than ever to start that portrait piece I had been planning, but still lacking a model, that will have to wait.