Georg BASELITZ

Georg Baselitz, born in 1938 in Kamenz, Saxony, is a German painter, sculptor, printmaker, and teacher. He lives and works in Berlin.

He spent his adolescence in East Germany, then moved to West Germany to live and study. His career took off in the mid-1960s, when he became a leading figure in the West Berlin spirit and German Neo-Expressionism. His figurative painting is characterized by a top-down presentation, drawn and painted with broad brushstrokes and bold colors. His sculpture, most often in wood, is done with a chainsaw. His work was installed at the Académie des Beaux-Arts de France on October 27, 2021.

From the beginning of Baselitz’s career, hands and feet, the primary means by which we connect with the world, have been constant subjects in his canon of motifs. His early paintings of hands and feet contradicted accepted notions of beauty, including the depiction of enlarged limbs in his groundbreaking Heroes series of the 1960s. With greater formal autonomy, the elegance of the elongated bas-relief hands is distanced from bodily associations, “representing nothing but themselves,” according to the artist.