Otto Dill is not only quick at capturing what he sees in a technique inspired by the looseness of impressionism, he also was a particularly gifted painter of movements of humans and animals. The fleeting character of the application of paint supports the visual impression of the movement without questioning the harmony of the overall composition. From 1908 to 1914, Dill studied painting at the Munich Academy and became a master student of Heinrich von Zügel, in whose animal class he initially devoted himself to depicting exotic animals. In the summer of 1917, the artist showed his racing scenes in an exhibition at Munich's Glaspalast. As a member of the Munich Secession, he took part in various exhibitions organized by the artist association in 1922 and was appointed professor in 1924. Numerous trips followed, among them to North Africa in 1924 and 1929, where he was finally able to study lions in the wild. He transferred the impressions of the landscape and the Bedouins into paintings in which the relationship between man and animal is expanded to include the combative aspect. [KT]