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It is my tradition to purchase one piece of artwork each year as a birthday gift to myself. This year I chose to add a small piece by German Expressionist Otto Dix to my walls. I've always been interested in German artists, but before now have not had an opportunity to acquire a piece for myself. The sheer historic significance of the German Expressionist artists is something we cannot deny. Dix was labeled a degenerate by Hitler, and subsequently lost his job as a teacher at the Dresden Academy. Two Dix paintings were exhibited in the Nazi exhibition of degenerate art, the Entartete Kunst, and were later destroyed by burning.
So Gehe Dieser Kelch an Mir Vorüber ( roughly translated Thus Pass This Cup to Me) is an illustration from "Das Evangelium nach Matthäus" — a biblical excerpt, printed in a bound edition of 2000 in 1960. It is a very late example of Dix's work, published just 9 short years prior to his death in 1969 (which just happens to be the year I was born in, making this commemoration of my birthday an even more appropriate choice).
Found on August 29, 2005 in an online auction.
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