Dresden Secession

The Dresdner Sezession (Dresden Secession) was an art group aligned with German Expressionism founded by Otto Schubert, Conrad Felixmüller and his pupil Otto Dix in Dresden, during a period of political and social turmoil in the aftermath of World War I. The group's activity spanned from 1919 until its final collective exhibition in 1925. During its heyday, the group consisted of some of the most influential and prominent expressionist artists of their generations, including Will Heckrott, Lasar Segall, Otto Schubert and Constantin von Mitschke-Collande, as well as the architect Hugo Zehder and writers Walter Rheiner, Heinar Schilling, and Felix Stiemer. Much of what is considered by many art historians to be the true peak of German expressionist art occurred in the first decades of the twentieth century just prior to World War I. German expressionism of that period noted for its humourless and vicious criticism of the German government and upper classes, and was dominated by two major artistic groups known as Die Brücke (The Bridge), which was highly critical of Germany's increasingly imperialistic aggression and Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider), which focused much of its commentary on industrialization's impact on the natural world. But the European war brought about the collapse of European society and the major art groups were swiftly broken up and scattered by the onset of the first world war. Those artists who failed to flee Europe found themselves conscripted to the front lines and many important artist such as Franz Marc and August Macke were killed in the trenches. During the war, European art seemed to take an unofficial hiatus amongst the carnage and it was not until peace returned in 1918 that a second generation of young German expressionists, many having endured the war through their late teens to early twenties, congregated into a variety of artistic movements opposing the violence of war. In 1918, Conrad Felixmüller moved to Dresden, where he became the founder and chairman of the group.