“Otto Dix in Detail is a fascinating study on aspects of the Dix’s oeuvre, combining a rich analysis of primary source material—letters, diaries, annotated literature, art criticism, popular press reports—with close material analysis of the artist’s paintings. Looking at Dix’s paintings from four different moments in his career spanning the interwar period, van Dyke offers the reader nuanced and exciting new ways of reconsidering well-known works. This is a powerful example of art history done well, taking the idea of surface quite literally and cutting through layers of paint to reveal the complex networks of social, political, and cultural factors that shaped an artist’s work.”

 

Camilla Smith, University of Birmingham

“Van Dyke is undoubtedly one of the foremost experts on the art world of the Weimar Republic. In his groundbreaking new study, he focuses on Otto Dix, one of the leading—and perhaps the most radical—painters of the era. In a paradigmatic way, the author demonstrates what a ‘leftist,’ critical art history can be today and how necessary it is. Detailed description, the ‘material turn,’ and the socio-historical analysis of the artistic field complement and illuminate one another. Van Dyke’s keen eye for detail leads to a fundamental reexamination of Otto Dix’s art in general.”

Olaf Peters, Martin-Luther University, Halle-Wittenberg

“In these case studies spanning two decades in the career of Otto Dix, van Dyke examines small, usually overlooked details in four artworks to build rich, expansive narratives on the dialogical and social nature of Dix’s artistic practice. It is an intricate, engaging, and revelatory performance, achieved through a combination of tireless close looking and exhaustive mining of documentary evidence, embedding the works more deeply in the cultural and political conflicts of the period.”

Charles W. Haxthausen, Robert Sterling Clark Professor of Art History, Emeritus, Williams College

"This tour de force of careful looking exhorts us to see anew the already much-discussed paintings by one of Weimar Germany’s most notorious artists. Van Dyke’s attention to detail yields fresh and multivalent insight into Dix’s artistic process, vaunting ambition, and deserved critical notoriety. Telescoping between work, artist, and world, this study also deeply plumbs the convulsive economic, political, and social realities that shaped and were, at times, shaped by Dix’s art. An indispensable contribution to the social history of twentieth-century German art.”

Barbara McCloskey, University of Pittsburgh

“The significance of this book resides in its commitment to close looking as art historical method. Whilst, as the author acknowledges, regular scholarship on Dix abounds, Otto Dix in Detail is an intellectually rigorous, art-historically distinct, and highly original approach to the study of seemingly minor details that, as the author skillfully reveals, hold a wealth of potential critical meaning. The book is a superb example of the tools of art history in action. The relationship between art and ideology as laid bare in van Dyke’s forensic attention to the painterly choices made by Dix demonstrates over and again why close looking as methodology remains the supreme tool of art historical analysis. This is a vital read not only for those interested in Dix but also for art historians more widely.”

Dorothy Price, Courtauld Institute of Art