About
This idea of “looking toward the future” is nonsense. I realized that simply going backwards is better. You stand in the rear of the train—looking at the tracks flying back below—or you stand at the stern of a boat and look back—looking back at what’s gone.
—Georg Baselitz
German painter, printmaker, and sculptor Georg Baselitz is a pioneering postwar artist who rejected abstraction in favor of recognizable subject matter, deliberately employing a raw style of rendering and a heightened palette in order to convey direct emotion. Embracing the German Expressionism that had been denounced by the Nazis, Baselitz returned the human figure to a central position in painting.
Born Hans-Georg Kern in Deutschbaselitz, Saxony, Germany, Baselitz attended the Hochschule für Bildende und Angewandte Kunst in East Berlin, from which he was expelled in 1957 for “sociopolitical immaturity.” He then moved to West Berlin, where he attended the Hochschule der Künste and completed his postgraduate studies in 1962. It was during this time that he changed his surname to Baselitz. From his youth, Baselitz had been interested in the German Expressionists’ use of “primitive” sources such as folk art, children’s art, and art of the mentally ill. To assert his independence from popular art of the postwar years, Baselitz and fellow artist Eugen Schönebeck wrote the manifesto “Pandemonium” (1960–62), a violent and shocking expression of the frustration of working in postwar Germany. In 1963 Baselitz had his first solo exhibition, which was an immediate scandal: the painting Die große Nacht im Eimer (Big Night Down the Drain) (1962–63), depicting a distorted figure holding an oversized phallus, was removed from the exhibition due to charges of obscenity and not returned to Baselitz until the conclusion of a lengthy trial. In 1965 Baselitz turned to the subject of “heroes.” Painted in thick impasto, the Helden (Heroes) (1965–66)—also known as the Neue Typen (New Types or New Guys)—portray men standing within natural landscapes. Disheveled and fragmented, these war-torn figures elicit an emotional response in the viewer as they evoke the events of recent history.
In 1969 Baselitz began to paint and display his subjects upside down in order to slow down his process of painting as well as the viewer’s comprehension of the motif. These iconic paintings, depicting inverted figures, landscapes, and still lifes, achieve a form of abstraction while maintaining figuration. Through the 1980s, his work took on an added density as he further employed a wide range of formal and historical references, including the paintings of Edvard Munch and Emil Nolde. Concurrently, he began creating large-scale sculptures made of painted wood, presenting these works for the first time at the 1980 Biennale di Venezia, where he showed Modell fur eine Skulptur (Model for a Sculpture) (1979–80).
The paintings that Baselitz produced between 1990 and 2010 marked another shift in his practice, displaying a more linear and abstract approach to the figure. In the Remix series (2005–08), Baselitz revisited his earlier works, graphically re-presenting his prior subjects such that their subtle meanings and technical innovations were made more explicit. In 2015 Baselitz’s Avignon (2014) paintings—a suite of eight towering nude self-portraits—were featured in the Biennale di Venezia. The following year related self-portraits with spectral figures were presented at Gagosian, West 21st Street, New York. In 2017–18 a large retrospective of Baselitz’s work was presented at the Fondation Beyeler, Riehen, Switzerland, and at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC.
Exhibitions
Georg Baselitz: What if...
Richard Calvocoressi narrates a tour of an exhibition of new paintings by Georg Baselitz in San Francisco, describing the visual effect of these luminous compositions and explaining their relationship to earlier works by the artist.

Artist to Artist: Georg Baselitz and Zeng Fanzhi
On the occasion of Georg Baselitz: Years later at Gagosian, Hong Kong, Zeng Fanzhi composed a written foreword for the exhibition’s catalogue and a video message to the German painter. Baselitz wrote a letter of thanks to the Chinese artist for his insightful thoughts.

Georg Baselitz: Life, Love, Death
Richard Calvocoressi writes on the painter’s latest bodies of work, detailing the techniques employed and their historical precedents.

Now available
Gagosian Quarterly Summer 2020
The Summer 2020 issue of Gagosian Quarterly is now available, featuring Joan Jonas’s Mirror Piece 1 (1969) on its cover.
![Georg Baselitz, Ohne Titel (nach Pontormo) (Untitled [after Pontormo]), 1961.](https://gagosian.com/media/images/quarterly/essay-baselitz-bildung/qxhewJId3rEi_275x275.jpg)
Baselitz Bildung
On the occasion of a career-spanning exhibition at the Gallerie dell’Accademia, Venice, Richard Calvocoressi tracks the evolution of Georg Baselitz’s development from his early education in East Germany to his revelatory trip to Florence, in 1965, and beyond.
Visions of the Self: Jenny Saville on Rembrandt
Jenny Saville reveals the process behind her new self-portrait, painted in response to Rembrandt’s masterpiece Self-Portrait with Two Circles.

Now available
Gagosian Quarterly Summer 2019
The Summer 2019 issue of Gagosian Quarterly is now available, featuring a detail from Afrylic by Ellen Gallagher on its cover.

Baselitz: Devotion
Georg Baselitz speaks with Sir Norman Rosenthal on the subject of his latest work. The two discuss these paintings, all depictions of self-portraits by artists from the past and present, and what it means to pay homage.

Baselitz
Morgan Falconer visits the artist’s studio outside Munich to learn more about his newest paintings, a series entitled Devotion.

Now available
Gagosian Quarterly Spring 2019
The Spring 2019 issue of Gagosian Quarterly is now available, featuring Red Pot with Lute Player #2 by Jonas Wood on its cover.
Fairs, Events & Announcements

Book Fair
Taipei Art Book Fair 2020
November 13–15, 2020
Huashan 1914 Creative Park, Taipei
taipeiartbookfair.com
Gagosian is pleased to participate in the Taipei Art Book Fair 2020 as a guest of Taipei Dangdai. Taipei Dangdai has invited its 2020 exhibitors to each showcase three new publications in its booth. Gagosian will present Georg Baselitz: Years Later, which documents a recent exhibition of new works by the artist at Gagosian, Hong Kong; an exhibition catalogue on Brice Marden’s latest paintings and works on paper, which continue the Letter series he initiated in 2006; and Mary Weatherford: I’ve Seen Gray Whales Go By, which documents the artist’s 2018 exhibition at Gagosian, New York, featuring large paintings onto which neon light tubes are attached. To attend the fair, purchase tickets at taipeiartbookfair.com.
Georg Baselitz: Years later (New York: Gagosian, 2020)

Art Fair
Hong Kong Spotlight by Art Basel
November 27–30, 2020, booth S07
Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre
www.artbasel.com
Gagosian is pleased to participate in the inaugural Hong Kong Spotlight by Art Basel, the gallery’s third in-person art fair since the COVID-19 lockdown in March. Organized in conjunction with Fine Art Asia, the fair will present works from twenty-two Hong Kong–based galleries in a boutique setting. On view will be a range of thematic solo and group exhibitions, as well as films and specially curated art historical presentations.
Alex Israel, Wave, 2020 © Alex Israel

Art Fair
West Bund Art & Design 2020
November 12–15, 2020, booth A102
West Bund Art Center, Shanghai
westbundshanghai.com
Gagosian is pleased to participate in West Bund Art & Design 2020 with an extensive group presentation. Along with the gallery’s booth at ART021 Shanghai, on view between November 14 and 15, this will be Gagosian’s first in-person art fair since the covid-19 lockdown in March. The gallery’s participation was made possible by extraordinary support from the artists involved.
John Currin, Pistachio, 2016 © John Currin
Museum Exhibitions

Closed
Inspiraatio—Nykytaide & Klassikot
June 18–September 20, 2020
Ateneum, Finnish National Gallery, Helsinki
ateneum.fi
This exhibition, whose title translates to Inspiration—Contemporary Art and Classics, explores contemporary art inspired by iconic masterpieces. Here, the original works are referenced through replicas, prints, plaster casts, and an abundance of archival materials. This exhibition has traveled from the Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, under the title Inspiration: Iconic Works. Work by Georg Baselitz, Glenn Brown, Jeff Koons, and Jenny Saville is included.
Installation view, Inspiraatio—Nykytaide & Klassikot, Ateneum, Finnish National Gallery, Helsinki, June 18–September 20, 2020. Artwork, left to right: © Glenn Brown, © Wolfe von Lenkiewicz. Photo: Hannu Pakarinen

Closed
Contemporary Art
Five Propositions
October 26, 2019–May 4, 2020
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
www.mfa.org
Through five thematic groupings, this exhibition seeks to rethink the stories that can be told with the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston’s collection of contemporary art. The groupings address a range of topics, including artistic process and complex relationships between humans and the natural world, the body, materials, identity, and notions of utopia. Work by Georg Baselitz, Helen Frankenthaler, and Andy Warhol is included.
Installation view, Contemporary Art: Five Propositions, Museum of Fine Art, Boston, October 26, 2019–May 4, 2020

Closed
Die jungen Jahre der Alten Meister
Baselitz–Richter–Polke–Kiefer
September 13, 2019–January 5, 2020
Deichtorhallen Hamburg, Germany
www.deichtorhallen.de
This exhibition, whose title translates to The Early Years of the Old Masters, explores the early works of Georg Baselitz, Anselm Kiefer, Sigmar Polke, and Gerhard Richter.
Anselm Kiefer, Wege, 1977–80 © Anselm Kiefer. Photo: Charles Duprat

Closed
Emilio Vedova di/by Georg Baselitz
April 18–November 3, 2019
Fondazione Emilio e Annabianca Vedova, Venice
www.fondazionevedova.org
To celebrate the centenary of the birth of Emilio Vedova, Georg Baselitz has curated an exhibition of works by the Italian artist. The show presents two series of black-and-white works on canvas that mark significant moments in Vedova’s long and complex artistic career.
Emilio Vedova and Georg Baselitz at documenta 7, Kassel, Germany, 1982. Photo: Benjamin Katz