Otto Dix – Bildnis der Journalistin Sylvia von Harden (1926)

Louisiana Poster with the work, Portrait of the journalist Sylvia von Harden (1926), by the German artist, Otto Dix, (1891-1969). The poster is published in 2022 in connection with Louisiana's exhibition about Germany in the 1920s, The Cold Eye. Dix's work is a central expression for many of the period's registering, often caricatured and distorted portraits of cool figures, alone and without eye contact—and also adorns the cover of the Louisiana Revue, which was published in connection with the museum's exhibition.

In 1920s Germany, a "cold persona" appears in contemporary culture—so named by the German literary critic Helmut Lethen (b. 1939). Cold portraits, devoid of emotion, alone, with a distant gaze, as a mask for the real feelings. The assumed indifference facade is to cover a feeling of humiliation after Germany's defeat in the First World War and an embarrassment over the pre-war utopias.

The artistic direction of the period—Neue Sachlichkeit—included artists who depicted less personalities and more types defined by social class. The portrait as a genre was radically changed here—from a psychological depiction to a focus on external characteristics.

Otto von Dix was in the habit of painting his models equipped with the tools typical of their work. This does not happen here, and Dix thus reduces the woman to a poser and a few possessions—a caricatured interpretation with exaggerated features and proportions. Dix undercuts to excess von Harden's arrogance in the image by adding a running stocking: Time had a taste for mastery and categorization, in a society in constant motion.