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Lot Essay
Otto Dix moved to the bustling city of Dresden in 1919, eager to resume his artistic career upon the conclusion of the First World War. One of Germany’s most important cultural centres, it was here that he would study art at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste and become one of the founding members of the Dresdner Sezession Gruppe. Dix’s lodgings were located in the city’s red-light district, and the women working there would take employment as life models, enabling Dix to work from a vast array of sitters. Between 1919 and 1922, Dix drew prolifically, creating around two hundred drawings and exploring the female nude with a striking and direct frankness. Elli, drawn in 1921, dates to this rich period of creativity.
The present lot is distinguished as one of the most fully worked in a series of drawings of this frequent sitter. Here, Elli is contextualised within the artist’s studio, her clothing cast on the well-worn chair behind her. Her trade is evoked by her suggestively rolled down-stockings. Despite the presence of what should be hallmarks of sensuality – the model’s nude body, her stockings, her heeled shoes – the scene is devoid of eroticism. Elli presents her sex candidly. With her unflinching gaze towards the viewer, and her open stance, the work is imbued with hints that suggest that, for her, the physical act of sex has been divorced from any kind of sensuality or intimacy. The graphic quality of Elli’s body and expressive rendering of her face are a testimony to Dix’s unrivaled draughtsmanship, but even more powerfully, to his astute ability to depict the emotional inner world of his sitters.
The present lot is distinguished as one of the most fully worked in a series of drawings of this frequent sitter. Here, Elli is contextualised within the artist’s studio, her clothing cast on the well-worn chair behind her. Her trade is evoked by her suggestively rolled down-stockings. Despite the presence of what should be hallmarks of sensuality – the model’s nude body, her stockings, her heeled shoes – the scene is devoid of eroticism. Elli presents her sex candidly. With her unflinching gaze towards the viewer, and her open stance, the work is imbued with hints that suggest that, for her, the physical act of sex has been divorced from any kind of sensuality or intimacy. The graphic quality of Elli’s body and expressive rendering of her face are a testimony to Dix’s unrivaled draughtsmanship, but even more powerfully, to his astute ability to depict the emotional inner world of his sitters.