Georg Baselitz

Georg Baselitz (b. 1938) is one of the most significant German painters and sculptors of our time. His works are part of numerous international museum collections. Baselitz is renowned for his expressive, often provocative paintings, which, since the 1960s, have been defined by his distinctive technique of inverting motifs. Through this inversion, he challenges viewers to focus more intently on form, colour, and technique. His art deeply engages with themes of German history, identity, and the human condition. Baselitz is regarded as a key figure of Neo-Expressionism.

„Inverting the motif gave me the freedom to focus entirely on color and composition.“

The artwork "Vanille" by Georg Baselitz at Naturhotel Forsthofgut.

Georg Baselitz „Vanille“ (2020)

Oil on canvas

The artwork Vanille (2020) depicts Georg Baselitz’s wife, Elke, whose image has played a central role in his work for over 50 years. The painting is part of the ’Speiseeis’ series, with works named after ice cream flavours and painted in sorbet tones. It was exhibited at the Fondazione Emilio e Annabianca Vedova in Venice.

Georg Baselitz „Ohne Titel“ (2024)

Red ink on paper

Indisputably one of the most important artists of our time, Georg Baselitz has shaped a new identity for German art in the second half of the twentieth century. Rendered in crimson ink, this 2024 drawing depicts an inverted eagle – a formal innovation Baselitz employed from 1969 onwards. Turning compositions upside down is the artist’s way of emptying the form of its content, of navigating between abstraction and figuration, and of revolutionising a medium that was then regarded as irredeemably conventional. Used to represent courage, freedom and strength as far back as the Roman and Byzantine Empires, the eagle is charged with art-historical significance. While acknowledging the symbol’s power, both historically and across his own extensive oeuvre, the focus, for Baselitz, is always on the significance of painting itself.

Georg Baselitz „Pferd“ (2022)

Red ink on paper

Georg Baselitz has constantly renewed his practice through formal developments, drawing upon art history and his own extensive oeuvre, never allowing himself to become restricted by a single, identifiable style. The vibrant flesh-red palette of this 2022 work is inspired by Henri Rousseau’s 1895 lithograph La Guerre (The War). The horse at the centre of Rousseau’s desolate landscape is wild, muscular and bristling, while Baselitz’s depiction of the same animal shows it at rest, its head slightly bowed as if in submission. Rendered through delicate brushwork, the creature’s slight outlines wind across the exposed paper like fragile veins laid bare. This fragility tempers the animal’s symbolic power, while at the same time betraying the artist’s nostalgia for the landscapes of his youth.

‘In the maelstrom of his art Baselitz uses the freedom he enjoys in the act of painting to transport the eagle into a realm of inaccessibility, a realm beyond unequivocal interpretation or even instrumentalisation. This motif cannot be wrested from his grasp.’

- Andreas Zimmermann of the Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna -

Works in Museums and Institutions

National Museum of Modern Art, Tokio, JP