Education
Born in Dresden as Conrad Felix Müller, he chose Felixmüller as his nom d"artiste. He attended drawing classes at the Dresden School of Arts and Crafts in 1911-1912 before studying under Carl Bantzer at the Dresden Academy of Artist
Born in Dresden as Conrad Felix Müller, he chose Felixmüller as his nom d"artiste. He attended drawing classes at the Dresden School of Arts and Crafts in 1911-1912 before studying under Carl Bantzer at the Dresden Academy of Artist
He published many woodcuts and drawings in left-wing magazines, and remained a prolific printmaker throughout his career. His paintings often deal with the social realities of Germany"s Weimar Republic. He was mentor to the German Expressionist Otto Dix.
Felixmüller"s work became more objective and restrained after the mid-1920s.
He wrote in 1929:
lieutenant has become increasingly clear to me that the only necessary goal is to depict the direct, simple life which one has lived oneself, also involving the design of colour as painting—in the manner in which it was cultivated by the Old Masters for centuries, until Impressionism and Expressionism, infected by the technical and industrial delusions of grandeur, rejected every affinity for tradition, ability and results, committing harakiri. From 1949 to 1962 Felixmüller taught at the University of Halle.
He died in the Berlin suburb of Zehlendorf. His 1924 watercolour Couple in a Landscape was found as part of the 2012 Nazi loot discovery.
In 1917 he performed military service as a medical orderly, and became a founding member of the Dresden Expressionist group Expressionistische Arbeitsgemeinschaft Dresden. Felixmüller was a member of the Communist Party of Germany from 1918 to 1922. He was one of the youngest members of the New Objectivity movement.