"How can I hurt you?" The author revisits two irreverent portraits of physicians by the German Expressionist Otto Dix in order to learn more about the sitters who submitted to the painter's fiercely satirical vision - Critical Essay - Biography

Art in America, April, 2004 by Sabine Rewald

In 1925 Dix moved to Berlin, where, one year later, he painted his second chilling portrait of a doctor, Wilhelm Mayer-Hermann (1890-1945), a prominent ear, nose and throat specialist. Unlike Dr. Koch, who is surrounded by a multitude of threatening medical instruments, Dr. Mayer-Hermann is seated in a sparse setting dominated by a fearsome apparatus. Above him, the large metal sphere of a mechanism used for light treatments mirrors the office. (8) The sphere is attached to a machine of burnished metal, with a crank to raise and lower it, which is plugged into a black electrical outlet on the left. Also on the left hangs a case with a dial, probably for the timing of light dosages. From the lower left of the apparatus protrudes a long tube that is inserted into patients' mouths.

In this picture Dix displays great technical virtuosity. Emulating the old masters, he used tempera and oil over gesso on wood, then covered the surface with transparent glaze. Likewise, the distorted reflection in the metal sphere above the doctor's head evokes the convex mirror in Jan van Eyck's Portrait of Giovanni Arnolfini and His Wife (1434), which reflects the room in which it is depicted. Here, a ceiling fixture casts harsh light over the darkened window, the empty shelves, a vacant doorway looming on the right and an empty examination chair with a red light facing the doctor. Strapped to his forehead by a white headband, the physician's reflector catches that red light (which he would then use to peer into a patient's throat). Dix again applied silver foil, this time to the screws and clasps that affix the reflector to the band.

Wrapped tightly in his white coat, Dr. Mayer-Hermann has been compared to a "white Buddha." The portly doctor's round face and hands find echoes in the composition's many circular shapes. His pear-shaped head, with its thick nose, narrow-set and long-lashed eyes, sensuous mouth and double chin, blends into sloping shoulders and curved arms.

Dix made exhaustive studies for the portrait of Dr. Mayer-Hermann (we do not know if any were made for Dr. Koch). Between 1925 and 1926, he filled a small sketchbook with 18 drawings in which he played with the placement of those two dominant spheres, one white smocked, one metal, in addition to making two large studies of the apparatus alone. (9) The lifesize cartoon of the entire composition was destroyed by fire. (10)

In view of the artist's acerbic approach to portraiture, it comes as no surprise that a photograph of Mayer-Hermann, taken in the late 1930s, shows trim to be a handsome man. What is known about Mayer-Hermann? His obituary in the New York Times of June 14, 1945, reports: "Dr. William S. Mayer-Hermann of 55 East 66th Street, specialist in diseases of the ear, nose, and throat, whose patients included several Metropolitan Opera stars, died yesterday morning at Sydenham Hospital, Manhattan Avenue and 123rd Street, after a day's illness. He was 53 [sic] years old. Dr. Mayer-Hermann, who came here from Berlin in 1934, leaves two children, Elsie [sic] and Claus." (11)