The Met’s “Glitter and Doom” exhibit (I know, sounds like a Barnaby Jones episode) isn’t as impressive as the Dada one at MOMA last year, but I still got a kick out of it. I think Dix is a shallower artist than Grosz or Beckmann, so I was a little disappointed that he dominates the exhibit, but them’s the breaks. I did like seeing the portraits of doctors who didn’t mind that Dix’s pictures of them would drive away business:


Dr. Meyer Hermann. (The droll wall copy describes him as “in-reality handsome.”)


Dr. Heinrich Stadelmann. (A psychologist and hypnotist. You can’t see it here, but his eyes are all glittery, just short of black and white spirals.)


Dr. Hans Koch, urologist. Say no more. (Dix also stole Koch’s wife. “Dix and Martha Koch became lovers, sharing, among other things, a passion for dancing. When Dix returned to Dresden at the end of 1921, Martha Koch followed him, leaving her husband and two children behind. Koch remained unperturbed, however, because he had already begun an affair with his wife’s older sister, Maria Lindner. Two new couples formed. Koch and Dix became brothers-in-law, and the friendship continued until Koch’s death in 1952.”)

Still, I don’t think any of these are as simply effective as Egon Schiele’s Herr Doktor von Graff:

Dr. Erwin von Graff, gynecologist. (Given to von Graff in lieu of payment for an abortion.)