Born in 1891 in Untermhaus, near Gera, Germany, to a family of modest means, Otto Dix studied painting at the Royal School of Arts and Crafts in Dresden. Enlisting in the army as a volunteer, he was profoundly affected by the World War I. He quickly acquired a scandalous reputation, disassociated himself from Expressionism and briefly joined the nihilist Dada movement. Along with George Grosz, he became a central figure in the New Objectivity (Neue Sachlichkeit), a major art movement that took a realistic and often scathing look at a society in the grip of a deep malaise and pessimism between the two World Wars: ''We wanted to see things naked, to see them clearly – almost without art,'' Dix explained. In both his technique and his style, he draws on the tradition of the German Renaissance, and his work depicts the most mundane and the crudest aspects of urban life in minute detail. Sought after as a portrait painter between the two World Wars, he captured the leading intellectuals and bohemians of the time.

In 1933, with Hitler's rise to power, Dix was immediately deemed a ''degenerate'' artist by the Nazi regime. His works were ridiculed, held up as negative examples, removed from German museums, confiscated, sold off and in many cases destroyed, which explains why they are so rare today. Forced to quit his teaching position at the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts, Dix embarked on his ''interior emigration.'' He moved his family to the countryside close to the Swiss border, near Lake Constance, where he devoted himself to landscape painting. Conscripted in 1944 and taken prisoner in France, he was rehabilitated in his final years and is considered today as a major painter of the twentieth century. He died in 1969.

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1891
Wilhelm Heinrich Otto Dix is born on December 2 in Gera (Untermhaus), some thirty kilometres to the west of the German city of Dresden. He is the oldest of four children born to Ernst Dix, an iron foundry worker, and Pauline Louise Dix, a seamstress.

1910
Dix begins attending the School of Arts and Crafts in Dresden and visiting modern art museums and galleries. The Expressionist artist Max Klinger and the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche have a profound influence on the young artist.

1912
Dix visits the exhibition devoted to Van Gogh in Dresden.

1914-1918
Dix enlists as a volunteer in the Dresden artillery regiment. He is sent first to the Western Front in France and then to Belorussia. In 1916, several hundred of his war drawings are exhibited in Dresden. (They are still considered an important source of documentation on the Great War.) He is rewarded for his courage with the Iron Cross Second Class and promoted to the rank of vice-sergeant major. In late summer 1918, he begins training as a pilot and spends the final years of the war in Silesia.

1919
Studies at the Dresden State Academy. Founds, and exhibits with, the Expressionist-oriented Dresdner Sezession – Gruppe 1919 (Dresden Secession – Group 19). Initial contact with the Dada movement.

1920
Along with George Grosz, Rudolf Schlichter, John Heartfield and others, Dix takes part in the First International Dada Fair in Berlin, where he exhibits The War Cripples. The painting's defeatism causes an uproar. Begins work on the painting The Trench (now lost), a description of the horrors of war that is without precedent in the history of painting. The work is completed in 1923.

1921
Dix is introduced to the techniques of etching and lithography. On the invitation of the art dealer Johanna Ey, he travels to Düsseldorf where he meets his future wife, Martha Koch (née Lindner), the wife of the doctor and art collector Hans Koch.

1922
In the fall, Dix leaves Dresden for Düsseldorf, where he studies at the Academy of Fine Arts. In Berlin, the police confiscate his painting Girl in Front of the Mirror, deeming it indecent. Accused of producing obscene images, Dix is brought to trial but is acquitted. Karl Nierendorf becomes his Berlin art dealer and mounts the first exhibition of Dix's watercolours, engravings and small canvases. Produces two portfolios of etchings, Death and Resurrection and The Circus.

1923
Marries Martha Koch in February; their daughter Nelly is born in June. Dix becomes associated with the avant-garde artists' collective Das Junge Rheinland (Young Rhineland). In Darmstadt, the painting Salon II (now lost) is exhibited. Showing naked prostitutes before a client in formal attire, it is seen as constituting an offence against public morality. Dix is brought to trial but is acquitted.

1924
In the spring, Dix spends several months travelling in Italy. Karl Nierendorf publishes his print portfolio The War. Forty of the artist's watercolours appear in an exhibition of his works at the Kronprinzenpalais of the Berlin Nationalgalerie. As part of the Junge Kunst (Recent Art) collection, a monograph by the art historian Willi Wolfradt makes Dix and his work known to a large audience.

1925
Dix and his family settle in Berlin. He socializes with the painter George Grosz, the actor Heinrich George, the journalist Sylvia von Harden and the dancer Anita Berber. He makes a name for himself as a portrait painter. Along with George Grosz and others, he takes part in the first exhibition devoted to the artists of the Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity) movement in Mannheim.

1926
Succeeds Oskar Kokoschka in a teaching position at the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts.

1927
Birth of his first son, Ursus. In the spring, the Dix family moves into an apartment in Dresden. Dix cancels a contract from the previous year that had obliged him to exhibit exclusively with the gallery owner Nierendorf; he is henceforth represented by Galerie Arnold and Fides Neue Kunst in Dresden. He takes part in the exhibition Europäische Kunst der Gegenwart (Contemporary European Art) in Hamburg. Dix begins work on the triptych Metropolis, an emblematic work of the New Objectivity aesthetic and the Weimar era that is completed the following year.

1928
Birth of his second son, Jan. Takes part in the 16th Venice Biennale.

1929
Dix begins work on the triptych The War, a meticulous re-creation of trench warfare possessed of exceptional narrative power. He completes the piece in 1932.

1931
He is made a member of the Prussian Academy of the Arts. Takes part in the first major exhibition of German art organized by Alfred Barr at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

1933
The Director of the Dresden Academy receives orders by telephone ''to remove Prof. Dix from his duties immediately, to forbid him from entering the Academy at any time henceforth, and to inform him of his dismissal from public service without a pension.'' He is also forced out of the Prussian Academy of the Arts. The Trench and The War Cripples appear in the exhibition Spiegelbilder des Verfalls (Reflections of Decline) in Dresden. Dix leaves Dresden and settles with his family in Schloss Randegg on Lake Constance, close to the Swiss border.

1934
Dix is forbidden to show his work; his financial situation is precarious. Dix's work receives a warm welcome abroad, specifically in the exhibitions Modern Works of Art: Fifth Anniversary Exhibition, held at the Museum of Modern Art, and the International Exhibition of Paintings, presented by the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh (1935).

1935
Dix confines himself to painting landscapes that are devoid of blatant political connotations and easier to sell. Despite the ban preventing Dix from showing his work, the gallery owner Nierendorf mounts the exhibition Zwei deutsche Maler (Two German Painters), which also features paintings by Franz Lenk.

1936
Dix produces allegorical and religious paintings. Martha comes into an inheritance, which improves the family's financial situation. They move into their own house in Hemmenhofen on Lake Constance, where they will live until Dix's death.

1944-1945
Dix is drafted into the Volkssturm (German militia). Deployed to the Western Front, he is captured by the French and held prisoner near Colmar, where he is nevertheless allowed to paint.

1946
Dix is released in February after nearly a year in captivity. He works in his studios in Hemmenhofen and Dresden.

1949
He turns down professorships in Berlin and Dresden.

1955
Dix takes part in the Documenta I exhibition in Kassel (Germany); he is appointed to the West Berlin Academy of Arts.

1959
Receives the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany and is made a honorary citizen of Gera, the city of his birth.

1967
Falls victim to a first stroke, which leaves his left hand paralyzed.

1969
Receives the Rembrandt-Preis der Goethe-Stiftung. On July 25, dies from a second stroke.