Georg Baselitz was born Hans-Georg Kern in Deutschbaselitz in 1938, a region which was part of the German Democratic Republic after the Second World War. As a child, Baselitz and his family lived in the school where his father taught. The artist’s own academic education was a journey of trial and error. In 1955, he unsuccessfully attempted to enrol at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste (University of Fine Arts) in Dresden. The following year, he passed the entrance exam for the Tharandt Forestry School, but rather than attend courses, chose to follow courses at the Hochschule für bildende und angewandte Kunst (Academy of Fine and Applied Arts) in Berlin-Weißensee (East Berlin) under Behrens-Hangeler and Womacka. However, he was expelled a few months into the first semester for ‘socio-political immaturity’. In 1957, Baselitz enrolled at the West-Berliner Hochschule der bildenden Künste (Academy of Fine Arts of West Berlin). Here, he encountered seminal figures of contemporary art such as Vasiliy Kandinsky and Kazimir Malevich, formed meaningful relationships with other artists such as the young painter Eugen Schönebeck and the future photographer Benjamin Katz. Encouraged and inspired by the Western half of the German capital, Baselitz settled there in 1958. A few years later he would meet his wife-to-be, Elke Kretzschmar and encounter works by Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning and Philip Guston during a travelling MoMA exhibition entitled ‘From New York to Berlin’. In 1961, in homage to his hometown, he adopted the Baselitz name (and persona).
Baselitz’s first solo exhibition was held in 1963 at the Werner and Katz Gallery, and set a precedent which has become synonymous with Baselitz’s career and communication: scandal. Indeed, two of the displayed artworks created a scandal, one of a male nude, the second depicting a young boy masturbating. Both were promptly confiscated by the local authorities. Following this milestone, the artist dedicated himself more seriously to engraving. A stay at the Villa Romana in Florence would play an important role in this temporary focus.
The year 1969 marked an important turning point in Baselitz’s artistic process. Indeed, he began painting portraits ‘upside-down’ with Der Wald auf dem Kopf (The forest on its head). The artist was inspired by experiencing Louis-Ferdinand von Rayski’s Wermsdorfer Wald the wrong way round. Baselitz’s reasoning behind his adoption of the technique was methodical and perceptive: the gesture allowed the artist to test the limits of figuration and abstraction, therefore privileging technique and formal aspect over content. These contentless upside-down paintings were the subject of an exhibition in 1970 in Cologne.
This visual language associated with the artist’s prolific output and media visibility engendered numerous opportunities for exhibitions, including several retrospectives: in 1974, a retrospective of his etchings; in 1976, in the Kunsthalle in Berne and in Cologne, and in Munich’s Staatsgalerie moderner Kunst; in 1984, in Basle’s Staatsgalerie moderner Kunst; in 1996, at the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris; in 2006, at the Louisiana Museum, in Humlebæk, Denmark; in 2007, at the Royal Academy of Arts in London; and in 2013–2014, at the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris.
During this period, Baselitz developed a reputation for provocation alongside his artistic prowess and learned to intrumentalise scandal. Indeed, in 1980, he showed Model for a Sculpture during the Venice Biennale. The sculpture depicts a sitting figure performing what looks like a Nazi salute, an evocation the artist refuted shortly after. Numerous debates ensued, dividing critics to this day. In 2013, Baselitz was also singled out for claiming that women make for poor artists, as they lack the core (masculine) brutality necessary for the creation of art. Once again, the artist refuted all allegations of misogyny, while at the same time expertly making himself the temporary centre of attention.
