{"id":556374,"date":"2026-05-06T19:42:26","date_gmt":"2026-05-06T19:42:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/winklersart.com\/?p=556374"},"modified":"2026-05-06T19:42:26","modified_gmt":"2026-05-06T19:42:26","slug":"after-world-war-ii-this-german-artist-turned-the-art-world-upside-down-literally-by-inverting-his-paintings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/winklersart.com\/?p=556374","title":{"rendered":"After World War II, This German Artist Turned the Art World Upside Down\u2014Literally, by Inverting His Paintings"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Georg Baselitz, the renowned painter who played with perspective and flipped canvases on their head, died recently at age 88<\/h2>\n
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\n \"Christian\n <\/div>\n
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Christian Thorsberg<\/p>\n

| Daily Correspondent<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\"Painting\n <\/picture>
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The Painter in His Bed etc.<\/em>, Georg Baselitz, 2023
\n Jochen Littkemann, Berlin \/ Munch Museum<\/span>
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In East Berlin in 1956, an 18-year-old upstart named Hans-Georg Bruno Kern found an art school requirement utterly disagreeable. While his classmates put in time working at an industrial site\u2014a mandatory duty under East Germany\u2019s communist regime\u2014he resisted.<\/p>\n

The teenager\u2019s subsequent expulsion for \u201csocio-political immaturity\u201d set the stage for a decades-long career in art that rarely paid heed to tradition or order. Kern moved to West Berlin, changed his name to Georg Baselitz <\/em>(after his hometown, Deutschbaselitz), and made a name for himself with a prolific catalogue of paintings that earned international acclaim.<\/p>\n

Baselitz died on April 30 at 88 years old. He is best remembered as the painter who turned his canvases\u2014and the artistic circles of postwar Germany\u2014upside down.<\/p>\n

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\"The

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The Bridge Ghost<\/em>\u2019s Supper, <\/em>Georg Baselitz, 2006, at the Munch Museum <\/p>\n

Ove Kvavik \/ Munch Museum<\/span><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cI was born into a destroyed order, a destroyed landscape, a destroyed people, a destroyed society,\u201d Baselitz told Artforum\u2019s Donald Kuspit in 1995. \u201cAnd I didn\u2019t want to reestablish an order: I had seen enough of so-called order. I was forced to question everything, to be \u2018naive,\u2019 to start again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Baselitz was provocative from the start. His first solo exhibition, in 1963, ended with the police seizing two paintings of men with enormous penises. The government charged him with offending public morality, but it didn\u2019t stick.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a human being, I am a citizen, but as an artist, I am asocial,\u201d Baselitz told Deborah Gimelson in a 2014 interview for Interview magazine. \u201cA citizen sticks to conventions, does whatever is social. Artists, of course, must reject all conventions. I see no differently in reconciling the best of both of these worlds.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"Woodman\"

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Woodman (Waldarbeiter), <\/em>Georg Baselitz, 1969<\/p>\n

The Art Institute of Chicago<\/span><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In the late 1960s, Baselitz broke again from artistic norms in a series of so-called \u201cFracture Paintings,\u201d in which he portrayed woodsmen, animals and forests in irregular, segmented pieces. This disorienting style\u2014evocative of a Germany that was physically, ideologically and emotionally split in two\u2014found a particular resonance with the public when the subjects were displayed completely upside down. The Man In the Tree <\/em>and The Wood On Its Head<\/em>, both of which drew inspiration from small German villages like the one where Baselitz grew up, were among the first in this style to receive acclaim.<\/p>\n

He continued to explore this look with a series of six portraits, all painted in 1969, of working Germans. In subsequent decades this upside-down style became his trademark, and his work was regularly featured around the world. New York\u2019s Metropolitan Museum of Art, Oslo\u2019s Munch Museum, Hong Kong\u2019s Gagosian and Venice\u2019s Fondazione Giorgio Cini all recently exhibited Baselitz.<\/p>\n

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\"Die

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Die goldene Kittelsch\u00fcrze <\/em>(detail), <\/em>Georg Baselitz, 2025<\/p>\n

Stefan Altenberger<\/span><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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Did you know? Unity Day<\/p>\n

Germans celebrate Unity Day on October 3, which commemorates the day in 1990 when the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) merged with the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) after four decades of division.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Ever the provocateur, Baselitz contributed a sculpture to the German pavilion of the 1980 Venice Biennale of a figure with a raised arm that some observers said looked like a Nazi salute. For years, Baselitz denied this was his intention.<\/p>\n

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\"Untitled,

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Untitled, <\/em>Georg Baselitz, 1976<\/p>\n

The Art Institute of Chicago<\/span><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Collectors covet Baselitz\u2019s art, with expensive sales showing how much he had grown from being a self-described \u201cbullheaded\u201d art pupil. His 1938 artwork Der Br\u00fcckechor (The Br\u00fccke Chorus) <\/em>sold at auction in 2014 for $7.4 million, while his 1965 artwork Mit Roter Fahne (With Red Flag) <\/em>fetched \u00a37.5 million (about $10 million in today\u2019s currency) in 2017.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis idea of \u2018looking toward the future\u2019 is nonsense,\u201d Baselitz said. \u201cI realized that simply going backwards is better. You stand in the rear of the train\u2014looking at the tracks flying back below\u2014or you stand at the stern of a boat and look back\u2014looking back at what\u2019s gone.\u201d<\/p>\n