Rosa, 1923

Brash, vulgar, unabashed, with thick red-painted lips and heavy rouge on her high cheekbones, with slightly slanted eyes and a coarse nose, the figure of a woman, naked and mask-like, is grinning at us. Otto Dix (1891–1969) intensifies—with the keen eye of a relentless observer of human abysses—the dissolution of the lascivious facial features though the use of wine-red and forest-green watercolors. Rendered with sure brushstrokes in expert drawing style, the voluptuous nudity of the woman’s upper body shows not only the left breast with an erotically tattooed areola, but also a name tattoo, “Rosa”, in a banderole. It refers—as does the dedication, “For Mr. Angermayer, Nov. 23, DIX.”, placed next to the woman’s head—to a play entitled Comedy Around Rosa by playwright and screen writer of Fred Antoine Angermayer (1889–1951), of whom Dix also produced a portrait.

MH, 2021