Georg Baselitz

Georg Baselitz
Georg Baselitz in a photograph by Oliver Mark
Born (1938-01-23) 23 January 1938 (age 86)
Deutschbaselitz, Germany
NationalityGerman, Austrian
Known forPainting, sculpture, graphic design
MovementNeo-expressionism
SpouseJohanna Elke Kretzschmar

Georg Baselitz (born 23 January 1938) is a German painter, sculptor and graphic artist. In the 1960s he became well known for his figurative, expressive paintings. In 1969 he began painting his subjects upside down in an effort to overcome the representational, content-driven character of his earlier work and stress the artifice of painting.[1] Drawing from myriad influences, including art of Soviet era illustration art, the Mannerist period and African sculptures, he developed his own, distinct artistic language.[2]

He was born as Hans-Georg Kern in Deutschbaselitz [de], Upper Lusatia, Germany. He grew up amongst the suffering and demolition of World 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 of perception, 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.

  1. ^ "Georg Baselitz". guggenheim.org. Retrieved 30 January 2018.
  2. ^ exhibit-E.com. "Georg Baselitz – Skarstedt Gallery". skarstedt.com. Retrieved 30 January 2018.
  3. ^ 1995 interview. In: "Goth to Dance: Donald Kuspit Talks with Georg Baselitz", in Artforum 33, no. 10 (Summer 1995), p. 76
  4. ^ Vischer, Theodora; Fondation Beyeler, eds. (2017), Fondation Beyeler : die Sammlung : mit Werken und Texten von Künstlerinnen und Künstlern (in German) (Deutsche Museumsausgabe ed.), Riehen / Basel, ISBN 9783775743334, OCLC 1010067077{{citation}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)