Georg Baselitz (b. 1938)
On occasion, Christie’s has a direct financial int… Read more Property from the Hans Grothe Collection
Georg Baselitz (b. 1938)

Hockender weiblicher Akt

Details
Georg Baselitz (b. 1938)
Hockender weiblicher Akt
signed and dated 'G. Baselitz 77' (lower right); signed and dated again and titled 'G Baselitz 'hockender weibl. Akt' Okt Nov. 1977 Jan. 78' (on the reverse)
oil on canvas
78¾ x 130 in. (200 x 330 cm.)
Painted in 1977-1978
Provenance
Sonnabend Gallery, New York.
Anon. sale, Christie's, New York, 20 May 1993, lot 34A.
Acquired at the above sale by the present owner.
Exhibited
Akron Art Museum; London, Whitechapel Art Gallery; Amsterdam, Stedlijk Museum and Kunsthalle Basel, Baselitz: Paintings 1960-83, September 1983-April 1984 (illustrated in color).
Vancouver Art Gallery, Georg Baselitz, November 1984-January 1985. Madrid, Centro de Arte Reina Sofia; Bordeaux, Capc Musée d'art contemporain; Berlin, Hamburger Bahnhof; Rome, Galleria Nazauibal d'Arte Moderna; Trento, Museo d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea; Geneva, Musée Rath; Tokyo, Sezon Museum of Art; Miyagi Museum of Art; Fukuyama Museum of Art, and Kyoto, National Museum of Art, Sonnabend Collection Exhibition, October 1987-February 1991, p. 273 (illustrated).
Paris, Galerie Daniel Templon, Hommage à Georg Baselitz, October-November 1993, no. 4 (illustrated).
Paris, Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Georg Baselitz, October 1996-January 1997, p. 89, no. 12 (illustrated in color).
Berlin, Martin-Gropius-Bau, Gesammelte Räume-Gesammelte Träume: Kunst aus Deutschland von 1960 bis 2000: Bilder und Räume aus der Sammlung Grothe, November 1999-February 2000, p. 28, no. 16 (illustrated in color).
Special notice
On occasion, Christie’s has a direct financial interest in lots consigned for sale. This interest may include guaranteeing a minimum price to the consignor which is secured solely by consigned property. This is such a lot.

Lot Essay

Hockender weiblicher Akt is a powerful example of Baselitz's celebrated inversion paintings. "In 1969 Baselitz took the decisive step, which was to govern all his subsequent work with the exception of the sculptures, and adopted the inverted subject technique as a consistent principle. By doing so he compelled the viewer to pay attention not only to the content--the theme clearly illustrated--but also, and primarily to painterly values. He was also committing himself to a much more difficult method of representation. He had to capture in his mind's eye an inverted image of reality. This demanded, not least, a stricter discipline, the violation in itself must be turned to account and made evident as a significant painterly event." (A. Franzke, Georg Baselitz, Munich, 1989, p. 111.)

Inversion represents a radical assault on the customary processes of seeing and representation. Baselitz argues, "The hierarchy which has located the sky at the top and the earth at the bottom is, in any case, only a convention. We have got used to it but we don't have to believe in it. The only thing that interests me is the question of how I can carry on painting these pictures." (Quoted in Georg Baselitz, Cologne, 1990, p. 96.) Baselitz focuses on the materiality of paint, the powerful, rough brushstrokes appear to carve the figure through jabs of paint, as opposed to earlier works where the central motif seems to both be composed of and able to control the flow of painted lines. The rough textured, carved aesthetic of the kneeling female figure and the patches of color in Hockender weiblicher Akt appear to anticipate Baselitz's work in sculpture, a medium he has explored since 1979.

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