DIX, Otto.

£375,000 · Offered by Peter Harrington

Der Krieg. First edition, number 57 of 70 portfolios, comprising the full published suite of 50 etchings and the additional 51st print, "Soldat und Nonne", all signed by the artist; in the five original paper wrappers (each signed and numbered) and boxes as issued. Der Krieg is perhaps the most significant artistic response to the First World War, the 20th-century equivalent of Goya's Disasters of War.Published on the tenth anniversary of the outbreak of the First World War, the sequence was based on Dix's service as a front-line gunner in the German Army from 1915 to 1918. "The fifty etchings of this cycle represent Dix's central achievement as a graphic artist... nihilistic landscapes, brutalised soldiery, obscene prostitutes and decaying corpses transmuted into figures of Death, are portrayed with a merciless candour. One print, "Soldat und Nonne", depicting a nun endeavouring to repel a soldier intent on raping her, was evidently too disturbing and had to be withdrawn from the published edition... Critical acclaim for the prints was enormous, and the portfolios were exhibited in Berlin, Vienna, Breslau, Wiesbaden and elsewhere. More than any other comparable publication, it was regarded as capturing the traumatic experiences of the First World War, which had been horrific, bitter, revolting and occasionally wryly humorous, but never glorious" (Carey, p. 184). It met with fierce resistance from German nationalist circles; in 1937, a complete set was included in the Nazi "D

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