Georg Baselitz | |
|---|---|
 Georg Baselitz in a photograph by Oliver Mark | |
| Born | (1938-01-23)23 January 1938 (age 88) Deutschbaselitz,Germany |
| Known for | Painting, sculpture, graphic design |
| Movement | Neo-expressionism |
| Spouse | Johanna Elke Kretzschmar |
Georg Baselitz (born 23 January 1938) is a Germanpainter,sculptor andgraphic artist. In the 1960s he became well known for hisfigurative, expressive paintings. In 1969 he began painting his subjects upside down in an effort to overcome therepresentational, content-driven character of his earlier work and stress the artifice of painting.[1] Drawing from myriad influences, including art ofSoviet era illustration art, theMannerist period andAfrican sculptures, he developed his own, distinct artistic language.[2]
He was born as Hans-Georg Kern inDeutschbaselitz [de],Upper Lusatia, Germany. He grew up amongst the suffering and demolition ofWorld War II, and the concept of destruction plays a significant role in his life and work. These biographical circumstances are recurring aspects of his entire oeuvre. In this context, the artist stated in an interview: "I was born into a destroyed order, a destroyed landscape, a destroyed people, a destroyed society. And I didn't want to reestablish an order: I had seen enough of so-called order. I was forced to question everything, to be 'naive', to start again."[3] By disrupting any given orders and breaking the common conventions ofperception, Baselitz has formed his personal circumstances into his guiding artistic principles.[4] To this day, he still inverts all his paintings, which has become the unique and most defining feature of his work.
Baselitz was born on 23 January 1938, in Deutschbaselitz (now a part ofKamenz,Saxony), in what was laterEast Germany. His father was an elementary school teacher, and the family lived in the local school building.
Baselitz attended the local school inKamenz. In its assembly hall hung a reproduction of the paintingWermsdorfer Wald (1859) byLouis-Ferdinand von Rayski, an artist whose grasp ofRealism was a formative influence on Baselitz.[5] Baselitz also became interested in the writings ofJakob Böhme. By the age of 15, he had already painted portraits, religious subjects, still lifes, and landscapes, some in afuturistic style.
In 1955, he applied to study at the Kunstakademie inDresden but was rejected. In 1956, he successfully enrolled at the Hochschule für Bildende und Angewandte Kunst inEast Berlin. There he studied under professorsWalter Womacka[6] andHerbert Behrens-Hangler and befriendedPeter Graf andRalf Winkler (later known as A. R. Penck). After two semesters, however, he was expelled for "sociopolitical immaturity" because he did not comply with the socialist ideas of theDDR.[citation needed]
In 1957, he resumed his studies at theHochschule der Künste inWest Berlin, where he settled down and met his future wife, Johanna Elke Kretzschmar. In 1961, he attendedHann Trier's master class and completed his studies the following year. Trier's classes were described as a creative environment largely dominated by thegestural abstraction ofTachism andArt Informel.[5] At the Hochschule der Künste, Baselitz immersed himself in the theories ofErnst Wilhelm Nay,Wassily Kandinsky, andKasimir Malevich. During this time he became friends withEugen Schönebeck andBenjamin Katz. Art historian Andreas Franzke describes Baselitz's primary artistic influences at this time asJackson Pollock andPhilip Guston.[5]
In 1961, he adopted the name Georg Baselitz as a tribute to his home town.
Since 2013, he and his wife have lived inSalzburg inAustria and both obtained also Austrian citizenship in 2015.[7] He married Kretzschmar in 1962 and is the father of two sons, Daniel Blau and Anton Kern, both gallerists.
At the turn of 1959 to 1960, Baselitz began to produce his first original works in a distinct style of his own, among them theRayski-Head (Rayski-Kopf) series and the paintingG. Head (G. Kopf).
In 1963, Baselitz's first solo exhibition inWest Berlin, atGalerie Werner & Katz, caused a public scandal. Two of the pictures,The Big Night Down The Drain (Die große Nacht im Eimer) (1962/63) andThe Naked Man (Der Nackte Mann) (1962), were seized two days after the opening of the show by the public prosecutor on the ground of their lewd and obscene content, after likely a friend of the Galerist Michael Werner had already reported their being seized via German News Agency in the local newspaper B.Z. – a self-fulfilling prophecy and intentional scandal. The ensuing court case did not end until October 1965.[8]
Baselitz spent the spring of 1964 at Schloß Wolfsburg and produced his first etchings in the printing shop there, which were exhibited later that year.Printmaking, a medium which he describes as having "symbolic power which has nothing to do with a painting", has since become an intrinsic part of his artistic repertoire.[9] The next year, he won a six-month scholarship to study at theVilla Romana inFlorence. While there, he studiedMannerist graphics and produced theAnimal Piece (Tierstück) pictures. In general, Baselitz' greatest inspiration stems from writers and artists such asAntonin Artaud,Samuel Beckett,Edvard Munch,Jean Dubuffet,Willem de Kooning,Joseph Beuys, as well as from theexpressionist artist associationDie Brücke.
After returning from Florence to West Berlin, Baselitz created the series ofHeroes (Helden, also known asNeue Typen), between 1965 and 1966, which, among others, includes the large-format compositionThe Great Friends (Die großen Freunde,Museum Ludwig,Cologne).[10] These figures represent ametaphorical image of a man who, having neither nationality nor an affiliation to a place, throws the illusory and megalomaniacal ideals of theThird Reich and East Germany overboard with his desolate, broken, ragged appearance (for example,Rebel, held by theTate Modern). Baselitz'Helden typically appear alone in a barren landscape with naked arms and legs, and hands opened in a summoning gestures. At times they bear attributes associated with the biography of the artist, who refers to his own childhood in the countryside and identifies himself with all of them.[11] Through early 1969, he produced further large-format pictures, such asWoodsmen (Waldarbeiter) as part of a group of pictures known asFracture Pictures (Frakturbilder).
On the basis of hisFractures, Baselitz used a painting by Louis-Ferdinand von Rayski,Wermsdorf Woods (Wermsdorfer Wald), ca 1959, from his childhood at his elementary-school as a model, in order to paint his first picture with an inverted motif:The Wood on Its Head (Der Wald auf dem Kopf) (1969).[12] By inverting his paintings, the artist is able to emphasize the organisation of colours and form and confront the viewer with the picture's surface rather than the personal content of the image. In this sense, the paintings are empty and not subject to interpretation. Instead, one can only look at them.[13]
In 2020, the Baselitz family donated six of Baselitz's inverted paintings to theMetropolitan Museum of Art including his first painting of his wife Elke. In 2021, the Museum displayed them inGeorg Baselitz: Pivotal Turn.[14]
In the 1970s, Baselitz regularly exhibited atMunich'sGalerie Heiner Friedrich. Most of the works he produced during this time were landscapes themed as pictures-within-a-picture. In 1970, at theKunstmuseum Basel, Dieter Koepplin staged the first retrospective of drawings and graphic works by Baselitz. At the Galeriehaus in Cologne's Lindenstraße, Franz Dahlem put on the first exhibition of pictures with upside-down motifs. In 1971, the Baselitz family once again moved, relocating to Forst an der Weinstraße. He used the old village school as studio and started painting pictures featuring bird motifs. He exhibited several times in the next few years around Germany and also participated in the 1972documenta 5 inKassel, where again his work would generate harsh criticism.[15] This same year he began using a fingerpainting technique. He painted landscapes until 1975, often based on motifs he would find in publications such as the ″Mitteilungen des Landesvereins Sächsischer Heimatschutz e. V.″. In 1975, the family moved to Derneburg, nearHildesheim. Baselitz visited New York for the first time and worked there for two weeks. He also visited Brazil, participating in the 13thBiennale inSão Paulo.
In 1976, Baselitz rented a studio in Florence, which he used until 1981. In 1977, he began working on large-formatlinocuts. He began teaching at theStaatliche Akademie der Bildenden Künste inKarlsruhe, where he was appointed professor in 1978. From 1978 until 1980, he worked ondiptychs using thetempera painting technique (combinations of motifs), multipart pictures (series of motifs), and large-format individual works such asThe Gleaner (Die Ährenleserin),Rubble Woman (Trümmerfrau),Eagle (Adler) and Boy Reading (Der lesende Knabe). The works became more abstract, with scriptural elements predominating. In 1980, he showed his first sculpture at theVenice Biennale.
In 1981, Georg Baselitz set up an additional study in Castiglion Florentino, nearArezzo, which he used until 1987. His work was exhibited in New York for the first time in 1981. By 1982, he began devoting more time to sculpture, in addition to several exhibitions. In 1983, he began using Christian motifs in much of his artwork, and completed the major compositionDinner in Dresden (Nachtessen in Dresden). In the same year, he took up a new professorship at the Hochschule der Künste Berlin. In 1986, in recognition of Baselitz's achievements, he was awarded theGoslarer Kaiserring by the city ofGoslar. Through the 1980s, Baselitz's work was exhibited frEquently in Germany. In 1989, the titleChevalier dans l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres was conferred upon Baselitz by French Minister of ArtsJack Lang.
In 1990, at the Nationalgalerie im Alten Museum in Berlin, the first major exhibition of Baselitz's works in East Germany was staged. In 1992, he resigned from the Akademie der Künste in Berlin. In 1993, he designed the set forHarrison Birtwistle's operaPunch and Judy, staged under the direction ofPierre Audi at theDutch Opera in Amsterdam. He also took part in the International Pavilion at the Venice Biennale with theMale Torso (Männlicher Torso) sculpture, accompanied by oversized drawings. In 1994, Baselitz designed a stamp for the French postal service. He also produced his first ground gold picture that year. In 1995, the first major retrospective of Baselitz's work in the US was staged at theGuggenheim inNew York City. This retrospective was also exhibited inWashington, D.C., andLos Angeles. Throughout the 1990s, his work was exhibited frequently throughout Europe. In 2002, a retrospective of Baselitz's work was shown in Art Gallery of Yapı Kredi Bank inIstanbul.
During this time, Baselitz lived and worked nearHildesheim (Schloß Derneburg), from 2006 on nearMunich, and inImperia in Italy.
His work was exhibited inLondon, at theRoyal Academy of Arts in late 2007, and in theWhite Cube gallery in 2009.
From 21 November 2009, to 14 March 2010, the Museum Frieder Burda andBaden-Baden's Staatliche Kunsthalle exhibited a comprehensive survey of the artist, featuring approximately 140 works.Baselitz. A Retrospective was presented at the two neighbouring museums, with the Museum Frieder Burda displaying50 years of painting, the Staatliche Kunsthalle30 years of sculpture.
In a 2013 interview, Baselitz was quoted as saying, "women don't paint very well. It's a fact. There are, of course, exceptions." Citing the comparative lack of commercial success of work by women painters in the most expensive markets as proof, he stated, "Women simply don't pass the test. (...) The market test, the value test".[16]
Baselitz's statements elicited rebuttals from art critics like Sarah Thornton, author ofSeven Days in the Art World, who countered, "[t]he market gets it wrong all the time. To see the market as a mark of quality is going down a delusional path. I'm shocked Baselitz does. His work doesn't go for so much."[17] The record then for a painting by Baselitz was £3.2 million, while the record for a painting byYayoi Kusama, a female artist, was £3.8 million.[18]
To this day, Baselitz is still an active, yet controversial artist and highly critical of German politics.[19] Over the past years, Baselitz has been working on a series of quiet portraits of both him and his wife, Elke, painted with dark washes of blue and black, somber tones that point to a mediation on mortality and aging.[20]
Due to his 80th birthday on 23 January 2018, several retrospectives were held in his honor; for instance atPinakothek der Moderne inMunich,Fondation Beyeler andKunstmuseum inBasel, as well as in the U.S. at theHirshhorn Museum in Washington, D.C.[21] With over 100 works highlighting six decades, the Hirshhorn's exhibition was the first major U.S. retrospective of Baselitz in more than twenty years.[22]
Devotion, an exhibition of paintings and works on paper by Baselitz inspired by self-portraits of artists he admires or is influenced by, was exhibited atGagosian Gallery in New York in early 2019.[23] The same year, Alan Cristea Gallery also published a series of 32 etchings by the artist of the same title.[24]
In 2019 a retrospective curated by Kosme de Barañano was held at theGallerie dell'Accademia in Venice, Italy, to coincide with the58th Venice Biennale, the first exhibition by a living artist in the museum gallery.[25] He also curated a special exhibition celebrating the life and work of his friend and fellow artist,Emilio Vedova, at theFondazione Emilio e Annabianca Vedova, entitledVedova di/by Baselitz.[26]In October 2021 a major retrospective opened at theCentre Pompidou including paintings, sculptures, drawings and prints, as well display cases with archival and documentary material. The exhibition was the last one curated byBernard Blistène as director of the museum.[27]
In the 1970s, Baselitz became famous for his upside-down images. He is seen as a revolutionary painter as he draws the viewer's attention to his works by making them think and sparking their interest. The subjects of the paintings do not seem to be as significant as the work's visual insight. Throughout his career, Baselitz has varied his style, ranging from layering substances to his style, since the 1990s, which focuses more on lucidity and smooth changes.[28] His drawings and paintings of the past ten years show the artist revisiting, correcting, and varying his earlier work. Self-reflection goes hand in hand with an insouciant and surprisingly unfettered graphic style.[29]
Baselitz's disparaging remarks aboutwomen artists[30] have earned him a reputation as asexist,[31] and he has been accused of reinforcinggender bias[32] in theart world.[33][34]
Baselitz highest selling painting wasMit Roter Fahne (With Red Flag) (1965), who sold by £7,471,250 ($9,099,982), atSotheby'sLondon, on 8 March 2017.[35]
The highest selling sculpture by the artist wasDresdner Frauen – Besuch aus Prag (Women of Dresden – Visit from Prague) (1990), a work of tempera on ash wood, who sold by $11,240,000, atSotheby'sNew York, on 19 May 2022.[36][37]
SeeList of works by Georg Baselitz
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