1914: Karl Otto Götz is born on February 22 in Aachen.
1920–1932: Attends primary school and, later, the Hindenburg Oberrealschule, a higher vocational school in Aachen.
1926: Meets the later painter and graphic artist Erich Mueller-Kraus (1911-1967), who both influences and motivates Götz as an artist.
1929: Produces abstractly figurative woodcuts and his first non-objective studies; joins the gliding club of Aachen.
1932: Leaves vocational school at his own request so as to become an art painter; at the initiative of his father, he attends the Aachen Advanced School of Weaving and, unknown to his parents, the School of Arts.
1934: Practical traineeship as draughtsman at a carpet factory in the city of Düren; is conscripted into the Freiwilligen Arbeitsdienst – FAD (Voluntary Labor Service).
1935: Undertakes a bicycle trip to Italy following his discharge. After returning to Aachen, he rents a new workroom and creates further woodcuts as well as his first splash paintings. His ‘camouflage’ application to the Reich Chamber of Culture is rejected when he accidently includes one of his experimental pictures; he is prohibited from painting and/or exhibiting.
1939: Conscripted into military service, he trains young recruits in the construction of telegraph and telephone systems.
1940: His unit is transferred to Dresden, which enables him to make contact with gallerists, writers of art books, and artists such as Otto Dix and Edmund Kesting.
1941: The first air-pump paintings are created; he is transferred to Norway, but soon thereafter is given a leave of absence to study for a semester at the Dresden Art Academy. Makes contact with Willi Baumeister in Stuttgart.
1942–1944: Stationed for the most part in Trondheim (Norway), he completes his notes for his Fakturenfibel (Facture Primer) and continues to draw.
1945: Thanks to the intercession of Herbert Read, he is allowed to return to Germany instead of being interned. Anneliese Brauckmeyer and their children move to Königsförde, close to Hameln, where the couple marry and live for the next five years.
1946: First solo exhibitions in Wuppertal, Dresden and Hannover.
1947: Through his patron and sponsor, the British painter and cultural officer Major William Gear, he makes contact with Paris and the art group CoBrA.
1948: Publishes the first issue of his magazine for experimental art and poetry, Metamorphose I.
1949: Publishes two more issues under the shortened title META, participates in the first major CoBrA exhibition in Amsterdam, and gets to know the artist Carl Buchheister.
1950: Moves with his family to Frankfurt am Main, where he has a solo exhibition at Klaus Franck’s Zimmergalerie. He goes to Paris for the first time and takes over the editorial responsibilities of COBRA 5, the first and only German-language issue of the magazine.
1951: Participates in the last major CoBrA exhibition in Liège.
1952: First paintings done in his new painting technique: working in gouache on a layer of paste, he subsequently digs into the wet paint with a squeegee and then reworks and revises the results with a paintbrush. Participates in the exhibition Neuexpressionisten (Götz, Bernard Schultze, Otto Greis, Heinz Kreutz) at Franck’s Zimmergalerie, which gets known as the “Quadriga exhibition”.
1958: Participates in the XXIV Biennale di Venezia, and is appointed to the Düsseldorf Art Academy.
1959: Participates in the second documenta, creates his first raster pieces, and moves to Düsseldorf.
1960: Meets the student Karin Martin (Rissa); concerns himself with the scientific aspects of image perception and processing.
1965: Divorces his first wife and marries Rissa.
1968: Participates in the XXXIV Biennale di Venezia.
1969: Rissa also takes on a position as instructor at the Düsseldorf Art Academy; another solo exhibition at Kunsthalle Mannheim.
1972: The essay Probleme der Bildästhetik – Eine Einführung in die Grundlagen des anschaulichen Denkens (Issues of Pictorial Aesthetics – An Introduction to the Basics of Graphic Thought), written in collaboration with Rissa, is published.
1975: Moves to Niederbreitbach-Wolfenacker in Westerwald; experiments with new pictorial schemata.
1984: The autobiography Erinnerungen und Werk (Memories and Work) appears; has retrospectives at the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, the Saarlandmuseum and the City Gallery of Esslingen.
1986: The Giverny Series, consisting of 30 paintings without any black color, is created.
1997: Founds the K. O. Götz und Rissa-Stiftung (K. O. Götz and Rissa Foundation).
2004: Is named an Honorary Member of the Düsseldorf Art Academy.
2007: Is awarded the Federal Cross of Merit; the Villa Hammerschmidt in Bonn receives paintings by Götz and Bernard Schultze.
2009: K. O. Götz and Rissa are awarded the Order of Merit of the State of Rhineland-Palatinate.
2010: K. O. Götz is awarded the honorary doctorate of the Kunstakademie Muenster.
2014: On the occasion of his 100th birthday, retrospective exhibitions are organized in Berlin, Duisburg and Wiesbaden, among other places.
2017: Karl Otto Götz dies on August 19 in Niederbreitbach at the age of 103 years.
