Georg Baselitz

Prolific artist Georg Baselitz has redefined the conventions of a range of media, predominantly painting and sculpture, over the course of his sixty-year career. Born in 1938, Baselitz was expelled from art school in East Berlin in 1956 for “socio-political immaturity,” and moved to the western half of the city. By the late 1950s, he created a striking, identifiable style by reintroducing figurative images into his art. Through his style, he proposed an alternative to the contemporary fashion for abstract art by embracing the human subject. Baselitz’s work also engages with movements in German painting such as expressionism and with painters like Edvard Munch, while reacting to the political and cultural fallout from World War II.This long-awaited monograph follows the development of Baselitz’s unique style from his earliest work through his most recent creations in his eighth decade. Richard Calvocoressi’s masterful construction of a chronological narrative helps unpack the artist’s work in terms of the disruptions in his life—the historical upheavals he witnessed alongside his astonishing career.