Otto Dill

Otto Dill (born June 4, 1884 in Neustadt an der Weinstrasse , † July 6, 1957 in Bad Dürkheim ) was a German painter .

life and work

Dill was born as the second of five children of the Royal Bavarian Post Office clerk Heinrich Dill († 1890) and his wife Margarethe into poor circumstances.

He initially completed an apprenticeship as a publishing clerk before studying painting at the Munich Academy from 1908 to 1914 . There he was a master student of the well-known animal painter Heinrich von Zügel . In 1914 he registered as a war volunteer, but was transferred to the Bavarian War Ministry in 1916 due to illness. Soon after, two years before the end of the war, Dill and Emmy married Dorothea Schleidt. Dill began a life as a freelance artist. In the summer of 1917 he was represented with a first exhibition in the Munich Glass Palace. As a member of the Munich Secession , he took part in various exhibitions of the artists' association in 1922. In 1924 he was awarded the title of professor.

Numerous trips led the artist a. a. to North Africa, Italy, France and Spain. Dill processed the impressions he gained there in numerous paintings and drawings that are clearly influenced by Impressionism - desert and Bedouin scenes, bullfighting studies and tiger pictures as well as hundreds of depictions of lions, which earned him the nickname “Lion Dill”. Horse racing and polo games were also among his favorite subjects .

In 1930 the artist moved from Munich to Neustadt an der Weinstrasse. Mostly landscapes were created there. In 1941, during the Second World War , he moved to Bad Dürkheim, where he lived and worked until his death in 1957. A large collection of his works was destroyed in a bomb attack in 1943 at the freight yard in Ludwigshafen am Rhein. In order to survive in this difficult time, the artist swapped drawings that he had made spontaneously for food. Therefore, numerous such occasional jobs are now owned by Palatine families.

In 1949 the city of Bad Dürkheim made Otto Dill an honorary citizen , and in the same year he became an honorary member of the Academy of Arts in Munich and an honorary member of the Society of Heinrich von Zügel Friends in Wörth am Rhein .

Streets are named after him in his hometown Neustadt an der Weinstrasse and in Schifferstadt, Bad Dürkheim, Neuhofen, Haßloch, Dannstadt-Schauernheim, Birkenheide, Frankenthal, Schönenberg-Kübelberg and Wörth.

Dill was buried in the main cemetery in Bad Dürkheim. His grave is still preserved. (Information from the Bad Dürkheim city administration from January 18, 2017)

meaning

Works by Otto Dill can be found in numerous public collections such as the Museum Pfalzgalerie Kaiserslautern , the Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen Munich, the Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus Munich, the State Museum for Art and Cultural History Oldenburg, the Musée National d'Art Moderne ( Center Georges Pompidou Paris) , and in the Von der Heydt Museum (Wuppertal). In 2001 a museum was opened in his hometown Neustadt an der Weinstrasse, which is solely dedicated to his work. To this day, Dill is one of the most important painters of the Munich School in the Palatinate, alongside Max Slevogt .

literature

• Karl Rapp: Through Africa with Otto Dill. In: Pfälzische Rundschau. Supplement, September 11, 1929.
• Dill, Otto . In: Hans Vollmer (Hrsg.): General Lexicon of Fine Artists of the XX. Century. tape 1 : A-D . EA Seemann, Leipzig 1953, p. 566 .
• Dill, Otto . In: Hans Vollmer (Hrsg.): General Lexicon of Fine Artists of the XX. Century. tape 5 : V-Z. Supplements: A-G . EA Seemann, Leipzig 1961, p. 429 .
• Hans-Jürgen Imiela : Otto Dill. Karlsruhe 1960.
• Wilhelm Weber: Otto Dill. Life and work. Edited by Manfred Vetter. Zülpich-Langendorf 1992.
• Horst Ludwig: Dill, Otto. In: Bruckmann's Lexicon of Munich Art. Munich painter in the 19th and 20th centuries Century. Edited by Horst Ludwig. Volume 5. Munich 1993.
• Elisabeth Feilen: Dill, Otto . In: General Artist Lexicon . The visual artists of all times and peoples (AKL). Volume 27, Saur, Munich a. a. 2000, ISBN 3-598-22767-1 , p. 396.
• Thomas Rosky: In: Trödler & Collector Journal. September 2004, pp. 52–56 (with 11 color illustrations).

Web links

• Literature by and about Otto Dill in the catalog of the German National Library
• Otto-Dill-Museum Neustadt an der Weinstrasse