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For Dix, though, the works are
worth an inestimable value – but
of a different sort.
His wife, Victoria, died from
cancer in March, 2019. It was she
who had encouraged him down
this path, to enroll in classes and
commit to his artwork.
She’d told him: “Go and paint;
it’s your turn now.” And the art-
ist felt a powerful connection to
her during the making of these
lost paintings.
The work, he says, represent-
ed her permission, it had been a
lifeline to her, as well as his first
steps into a new life after she’d
gone. Discovering that the paint-
ings were missing was “like los-
ing Victoria all over again,” he
says.
He’s most proud of a series of
four large panels titledLove and
Loss.It’s these he’s also most
heartbroken to be missing. One
shows the sunrise over a green
valley – a pleasant if overplayed
picture – but the idyll is disor-
dered by a pedestal and vase,
highly realistic, sat before the
landscape, suggesting a separate
dimension.
Another depicts a gallery wall
hung with a painting of what
looks like the same room. Or is it
a mirror? An empty plinth
stands dead centre, like a viewer
staring into the frame and puz-
zling out the scene.
In each painting across the
series, there’s a single object in-
serted into a space that appears
idealized or otherwise askew.
“I really do believe in the ges-
talt in painting,” Dix says.
“Things come out of you that
you don’t intend.”
The artist remembers a con-
versation with another student
when he told him about his
wife’s passing. The classmate
said: “Aha! I understand now. I
thought there was something
lonely, but always hopeful in
your paintings.” It occurred to
Dix then that what he was com-
posing were, in essence, allego-
ries of loss. “There is a sense,” he
says, “of being singular and
alone and looking out into a fu-
ture.”
Not only are these some of his
most technically accomplished
works, they also represent an in-
tensely intimate narrative. That’s
why it’s so important to Dix that
they’re recovered. There is cer-
tainly a precedent of thefts from
art schools. There are also a
number of examples of relatives
of famous artists – including Pi-
casso, Renoir, Matisse, Miro and
Gauguin – whose children,
grandchildren or great-grand-
children also became visual art-
ists. What’s not widely docu-
mented are any instances of
those younger artist-relatives
befallen by theft because of the
connection.
Dix’s instructor, Gelineau,
doesn’t believe that’s the motive
for whoever removed the Dix
paintings.
“I have enough trouble get-
ting students to know who any
artist is,” he says. Van Gogh they
might recognize, but Otto Dix is
less likely.
It is curious, however, that
only Dix’s art was taken. All of it,
too.
The RCMP has reviewed foot-
age from the school’s security
cameras, which shows two per-
sons of interest – a male and a
female, Dix says – loading a
number of large canvases into a
white station wagon over a 25-
minute period between when
the paintings were last seen in
the classroom and when Dix dis-
covered them missing. But police
say the video is insufficient to
identify the suspects or their ve-
hicle.
Meanwhile, Dix and his
friends have been circulating
images of the stolen artwork,
e-mailing galleries throughout
the province to be on the loo-
kout, and scouring online mar-
ketplaces in case they surface
there.
He says that if the paintingswere mysteriously returned,
there would be no repercussions.
“I’m not looking for blood, I’m
looking for oil.”
Were the paintings recovered,
the artist thought he might
throw a party–afour-painting
exhibition.
“They would not be for sale,”
Dix says. “I have four boys. I have
four paintings. Each of them
would receive a painting as a me-
morial of a precious woman. A
lovely ending.”
Until then, the search for the
lost Dix paintings continues.Special to The Globe and MailPaintings:‘I’mnotlookingforblood.I’mlookingforoil,’Dixsays
FROMR1ArtistJulianDixsayshe’smostproudofaseriesoffourlargepanelstitledLoveandLoss,oneofwhichisseenabove.Ineachpaintingacross
theLoveandLossseries,
there’sasingleobject
insertedintoaspacethat
appearsidealizedor
otherwiseaskew.
Dix,seenpaintinginhis
studio,saysitoccurredto
himlaterthathewas
composing,inessence,
allegoriesofloss:‘There
isasenseofbeing
singularandaloneand
lookingoutintoafuture.’| ARTS&BOOKS