Georg Baselitz (born 1938, Deutschbaselitz, Germany) is a contemporary artist whose work has played a decisive role in the redefinition of painting in postwar Europe. Working across painting, sculpture, drawing, and printmaking, Baselitz developed a practice that confronts history, identity, and representation through deliberate disruption of pictorial convention.
Emerging in the early 1960s, Baselitz became known for his refusal of abstraction’s dominance in postwar German art, instead insisting on figuration as a site of rupture and provocation. His work has been exhibited internationally and is held in major public collections, positioning him as a central figure in postwar and contemporary painting.
Artistic Practice
Georg Baselitz’s practice is defined by his sustained interrogation of pictorial structure and historical memory. From early figurative works to later developments in painting and sculpture, his approach consistently challenges conventions of composition, orientation, and finish.
Baselitz is widely associated with his inversion of the painted image, a strategy he adopted in the late 1960s. By turning motifs upside down, he sought to separate subject matter from compositional logic, forcing attention toward painterly means rather than narrative content.
Across media, his work privileges physicality and material presence. Brushwork remains emphatic, surfaces retain evidence of labor, and forms resist refinement, reinforcing painting as an act of confrontation rather than resolution.
Key Themes and Motifs
Central to Baselitz’s work are themes of history, identity, and cultural rupture. His imagery often draws on German folklore, military references, and fragmented bodies, reflecting the unresolved legacy of twentieth-century history.
Motifs such as distorted figures, eagles, forests, and fractured anatomies recur throughout his practice. These elements function less as symbols than as carriers of historical and psychological tension.
By destabilizing recognizable imagery through inversion and distortion, Baselitz undermines traditional modes of identification and narrative coherence.
Historical and Cultural Context
Baselitz’s practice developed in the context of postwar Germany, where questions of cultural identity and historical accountability were deeply contested. His rejection of both Socialist Realism and international abstraction positioned his work in deliberate opposition to dominant ideological frameworks.
Associated with movements such as Neo-Expressionism, Baselitz nevertheless resisted stylistic categorization. His work emerged from a broader effort to confront the burden of history without resorting to illustrative or moralizing approaches.
By foregrounding rupture, failure, and material excess, his practice reflects a broader skepticism toward narratives of progress and renewal.
Painting, Sculpture, and Materiality
While painting remains central to Baselitz’s practice, sculpture occupies an increasingly important role. His sculptural works often employ rough-hewn wood and direct carving techniques, emphasizing physical force and immediacy.
These sculptures extend the concerns of his painting into three-dimensional space, privileging instability, imbalance, and raw material presence.
Across media, Baselitz’s work maintains a consistent resistance to polish and idealization, reinforcing the primacy of making as an act of struggle.
Editions and Works on Paper
Works on paper and editioned prints form a substantial component of Baselitz’s practice. Drawing and printmaking allow for sustained experimentation with inversion, fragmentation, and repetition.
Prints often translate painterly strategies into graphic form, emphasizing line, contrast, and compositional disruption.
Editions are conceived as autonomous works rather than ancillary material, extending the conceptual and formal concerns of his painting.
Market and Circulation Context
Georg Baselitz’s work circulates within a firmly established institutional and market framework. His paintings, sculptures, and works on paper are widely collected and regularly exhibited internationally.
Editions and prints provide additional points of access to his practice, while maintaining alignment with his broader artistic concerns.
Within the contemporary art ecosystem, Baselitz’s work is regarded as foundational to postwar German painting and its global reception.
Institutional Exhibitions and Collections
Baselitz has been the subject of numerous major retrospectives and solo exhibitions at leading museums worldwide. These presentations have emphasized the evolution of his practice and its sustained engagement with history and form.
His work has been exhibited at institutions including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Tate Modern, London; the Centre Pompidou, Paris; and the Städel Museum, Frankfurt.
Baselitz’s work is held in major public collections globally, where it occupies a central position in narratives of postwar and contemporary art.
Position within Contemporary Art
Within contemporary art history, Georg Baselitz occupies a pivotal position as an artist who reasserted the relevance of painting through provocation, materiality, and historical confrontation.
By dismantling conventional pictorial logic, his practice continues to influence artists engaging with figuration, memory, and the physical conditions of painting.
Editorial Note
This editorial page provides a structured overview of Georg Baselitz’s artistic practice, thematic concerns, institutional context, and market circulation, with particular attention to his radical reconfiguration of figuration.
Selected works by Georg Baselitz are available through our collection.
