About the Work
Little Ursus reacts sceptically to his father’s rather hideous grin. Dix depicted his young family in a classical triangular composition enhanced by the addition of four-year-old Nelly. Ursus commands all the attention, and Martha Dix also gazes down at the infant with an affectionate, Madonna-like expression. Using an Old Masterly glazing technique, the artist executed the scene on wood in glowing tones of red and orange. It is reminiscent of early portrayals of the Holy Family – with an ironic twist.
About the Acquisition
During the Third Reich, the museum's collection of modernist art was almost entirely lost by the confiscation in 1937 of what the National Socialists had labelled "degenerate art". The first decades after the Second World War were therefore devoted to rebuilding the department. Given the conditions in the post-war years, the city of Frankfurt was in no position to make funds for the purchase of art available in any significant way, and so the revived Museums-Verein focused intensively on this area of collection. In 1959, for example, the association planned to acquire two works for the collection: August Macke's 'Little Walter's Toys' and Otto Dix's 'The Artist's Family'. The asking price for each of the paintings was about 12,000 marks, but the city only had funds to purchase the painting by Macke. The Museums-Verein took over the costs of purchasing Dix's family portrait, so that today the two pictures hang side by side in the gallery.
