- Artist or Maker
- Otto Dix
Germany, 1891-1969 - Title
- Leda
- Date Made
- 1919
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- 40 13/16 × 31 13/16 in. (103.66 × 80.8 cm)
- Accession Number
- 85.3
- Collecting Area
- Modern Art
- Curatorial Notes
Otto Dix volunteered for the German army and served for three years during World War I on both the Eastern and Western Fronts, where he experienced first-hand the conflict’s unprecedented violence and destruction. On his return to Germany, Dix became actively involved with the most radical artists’ groups, first the Dresden Secessionists, and then Dada in Berlin. This painting was made only one year after the war’s end as Germany was in the throes of revolutionary fighting following the abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II and the establishment of the democratic Weimar Republic (1919–33). The kinetic energy of Dix’s composition is marshalled to express the savagery of Leda’s rape by the swan—the animal avatar of the Greek god Zeus—pointing to the violence at the heart of classical Western culture.
Wall label, 2021.
- Provenance
The artist (1891-1969). Fritz Glaser, (1876-1956) Dresden, until the 1930s. Felix Peltzer, Stolberg (1896-1983); [by 1962 sold to Marlborough Gallery, London]; sold in 1985 to LACMA.
- Selected Bibliography
- Powell III, Earl A., Robert Winter, and Stephanie Barron. The Robert O. Anderson Building. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1986.
- Löffler, Fritz. Otto Dix, 1891-1969: Œuvre der Gemälde. Recklinghausen: Verlag Aurel Bongers, 1981
- Copyright
- © Otto Dix Estate / Artists Rights Society (ARS) New York / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn
