Portrait of H.M. Werner

Georg Baselitz

1969 · Synthetic resin emulsion paints (Dispersionsfarbe) on canvas · Modern and Contemporary Art

Painted from a snapshot turned upside down, this portrait of the gallerist Michael Werner, part of a group of portraits of the artist’s friends and intimates, has a deliberately estranging affect. Made in 1969, these paintings enabled Baselitz to set his work outside the prevailing dichotomy between abstraction, associated with capitalist West Germany, and the socialist realism of East Germany. They are among the first paintings in which Baselitz deployed the strategy of inversion that would be of enduring interest to him. With this liberating compositional and conceptual conceit, he foregrounded the autonomy of the painterly process.

Artist

Georg Baselitz

Date

1969

Medium

Synthetic resin emulsion paints (Dispersionsfarbe) on canvas

Department

Modern and Contemporary Art

Credit line

Gift of the Baselitz Family, 2020