Georg Baselitz Hon RA (b. 1938)
Georg Baselitz Hon RA (b. 1938)
A painter, printmaker, sculptor and draughtsman, the work of Georg Baselitz explores collective, historical and personal themes, often featuring subjects repeatedly across different mediums.
Born Hans-Georg Kern in 1938, Baselitz grew up in Saxony, an area that later became the GRD. Whilst studying painting at the Academy of Art in East Berlin (1956), Baselitz was sent down after two terms for “socio-political immaturity”. He then applied at the Academy in West Berlin and moved there in 1957, graduating from the masterclass in 1963. During this period he adopted the surname Baselitz, reflecting his place of birth Deutschbaselitz.
The first of many solo exhibitions was held in 1963 at Galerie Werner & Katz in Berlin. After his scholarship in Florence in 1965, Baselitz embarked on a series of paintings depicting monumental male figures within mythical, ruined landscapes that would become known as the “Hero”-paintings. It was in 1969 when he decided to create and display work upside down in order to re-focus the viewer on the pure pictorial merits of the painting and to emphasise the abstract qualities of the composition. In the 1970s he was apparently working outside the mainstream, which was dominated at the time by Conceptual Art practice. By the 1980s he had established an international reputation (cemented by exhibitions such as the documenta 5 and 7 (1972, 1982), the Venice Biennale in 1980 or the Royal Academy’s groundbreaking show A New Spirit in Painting in 1981. Since the early 1980s he was making monumental wooden sculptures of figures and heads with rudimentary and deliberately irregular forms. In 2005 Baselitz introduced the “Remix” in his work, in which he has returned to key phases of his own art history and made new versions of his work, which have allowed him to revisit and excavate the past, pushing his own painterly vocabulary to create works that are fresh and liberated.
He has had major solo exhibitions throughout the globe over the last decades and exhibits regularly at galleries in London, New York, Paris, Salzburg and Berlin. Amongst other internationally notable decorations he was awarded the Praemium Imperiale in 2004.
Profile
Honorary RA
Born: 1938 in Deutschbaselitz, Saxony, Germany
Nationality: German
Elected Hon RA: 26 May 1999
Gender: Male
Preferred media: Painting and Sculpture
Works by Georg Baselitz in the RA Collection
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The old picture is like the old days. You see, if painters want to try to defy the ageing process, they have to stop painting straight after their first picture. And if painters don't jump out of the window in time, they grow old, and then it's up to them to see how they fill the rest of their days and find something to do.
Georg Baselitz
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Gallery
![Georg Baselitz, Fällt von der Wand nicht (Not falling off the wall), from the series Avignon]()
Georg Baselitz, Fällt von der Wand nicht (Not falling off the wall), from the series Avignon, 2014.
![Georg Baselitz, Ich höre Stimmen (I hear voices)]()
Georg Baselitz, Ich höre Stimmen (I hear voices), 2015.
![Georg Baselitz, BDM Group]()
Georg Baselitz, BDM Group, 2012.
![Georg Baselitz, Rat ich nuch wil lemt mehr (Rebl al if well), from the series Farewell Bill]()
Georg Baselitz, Rat ich nuch wil lemt mehr (Rebl al if well), from the series Farewell Bill, 2013.
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Selected CV: Georg Baselitz
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Selected recent and forthcoming solo exhibitions
2016 Heroes, Städel, Frankfurt, Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao, Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Rome
2014 Back then, in between, and today, Haus der Kunst, Munich
2012 Berlin Years, Villa Schöningen, Potsdam
2011 Baselitz – Sculpteur, Musée d’Art moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris
2009 Baselitz – 50 Years of Painting / 30 Years of Sculpture, Museum Frieder Burda, Staatliche Kunsthalle, Baden-Baden
2008 Georg Baselitz, MADRE, Naples
2007 Baselitz, Royal Academy, London -
Selected Publications
2014 Georg Baselitz – Back then, in between, and today, Haus der Kunst, Munich
2011 Baselitz – Sculpteur Musée d’ Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris Musées
2010 Georg Baselitz – Collected Writings and Interviews, ed. by Detlev Gretenkort, London
2009 Georg Baselitz – Skulpturen / Sculptures Staatliche Kunsthalle, Baden-Baden, Catalogue raisonné, ed. by Karola Kraus, Berlin
2009 Georg Baselitz – Painting & Sculpture, 1960‒2008, Museum der Moderne, Salzburg
2007 Baselitz, Royal Academy of Arts, London
2002 Georg Baselitz – Paintings 1962-2001, Michael Auping, ed. by Detlev Gretenkort, Milan -
Selected public collections
Tate Britain, London
National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh
Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris
Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris
Kunstmuseum, Basel
Fondation Beyler, Basel
Kunsthaus Zürich
Pinakothek der Modern, Munich
Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg
Nationalgalerie/Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin
MMK, Frankfurt
Museum Küppersmühle, Duisburg
Albertina, Vienna
Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam
Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen
Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk
Fundació La Caixa, Barcelona
IVAM, Institut Valencià d ‘Art Moderne, Valencia
Museo Guggenheim Bilbao
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
The Museum of Modern Art, New York
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York
Saint Louis Art Museum
Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington DC
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC
The Art Institute, Chicago
Harvard Art Museum, Cambridge
Australian National Gallery, Canberra
The National Museum of Art, Osaka
MOMAT, Tokyo
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