Untitled 20.II.1995
Since his early years, Baselitz has been interested in the German Expressionists’ varied use of creative inspiration, including the artwork of the mentally unwell, folklore and children’s art.
Georg Baselitz
Germany, 1938
Lives and works in Germany
The German painter, sculptor and graphic artist, Georg Baselitz was born into the chaos and demolition of the Second World War, forming the personal circumstances of his formative years in a fractured Germany into his guiding creative principles. He’s regarded as one of Germany’s most important post-war living artists working today.
Baselitz is a pioneering Neo-Expressionist who sought to return to recognisable subject matter in his works, rejecting the Nazi-led principles of abstraction in contemporary art of the time. Since his early years, he has been interested in the German Expressionists’ varied use of creative inspiration, including the artwork of the mentally unwell, folklore and children’s art. This is immediately evident in his Untitled 20.11.1995, (1995), featuring a field of poppy-red flowers or even a constellation of glowing scarlet stars. The work has a whimsical playfulness about it, yet on closer inspection, is subdivided with brutal, geometric squares. The scattered, organic shapes are contrasted and segmented by these imposing forms, creating a sense of sudden ownership or occupation of space or peoples.