Georg Baselitz: Paintings and Drawings from the 1960s
Zwirner & Wirth will present an exhibition of paintings and drawings created by Georg Baselitz at the beginning of his artistic career in the 1960s. These works demonstrate Baselitz's determination and marked interest in creating a new pictorial language, in a climate where abstraction was the only acceptable style in post-World War II Germany and where American "pop" iconography was swiftly filtering into Europe. Dissatisfied with his studies in West Berlin in the late 1950s, where Tachisme and Art Informel were the dominating styles, Baselitz traveled widely, discovering, in particular, the work of Gericualt, Moreau, Soutine, Guston and the late work of Picabia. His rigorous exploration of figuration and its evolution throughout this seminal decade is laid out in both the drawings and paintings in this exhibition.
"The essential is to make a new image, this requires a precision and clarity that admit no interpretations or associations" -Georg Baselitz