Vasari Art Codex

candle obituary schedule Apr 30, 2026 visibility 8 link 5 artists, 1 gallery

Georg Baselitz, German artist who turned figurative painting on its head, has died, aged 88

Georg Baselitz, the influential German painter and sculptor, died on 30 April at age 88. Born Hans-Georg Kern in 1938 in Deutschbaselitz, he grew up amid the ruins of Nazi Germany and later adopted his surname from his birthplace. Expelled from the East Berlin Academy for "sociopolitical immaturity," he moved to West Berlin, where he rejected both gestural abstraction and Expressionism. His first solo exhibition in 1963 was shut down for obscenity. In 1969 he pioneered his signature inverted paintings, turning subjects upside down to sever image from representation. He also created large carved sculptures using axes and chainsaws. His later series, from 2014 onward, are considered his most astonishing work, culminating in a sustained focus on his wife, artist Elke Kretzschmar.

newspaper The Art Newspaper open_in_new Read original

candle obituary schedule Apr 30, 2026 visibility 5 link 1 artist

È morto a 88 anni il grande artista tedesco Georg Baselitz

German painter Georg Baselitz, known for his expressionist works that confronted the horrors of Nazi Germany, died on April 30, 2026 at age 88. Born Hans-Georg Kern in 1938, he grew up amid World War II rubble and became a pioneering, anti-conformist figure of the post-war era, famously inverting his images to force viewers to reconstruct meaning. A major exhibition, 'GEORG BASELITZ – AVANTI!', had just opened on March 25 at the Museo Novecento in Florence, focusing on his graphic works and his ties to the city. Another show, 'Georg Baselitz. Eroi d’Oro', was set to open May 6 at the Fondazione Giorgio Cini in Venice during the 61st Venice Biennale, featuring large recent paintings and portraits of his wife Elke.

newspaper Artribune open_in_new Read original

candle obituary schedule Apr 30, 2026 visibility 6 link 7 artists

‘In every drop of paint he slurped, you see the Holocaust’: the genius and torments of Georg Baselitz

Georg Baselitz, the German painter and sculptor known for his provocative confrontations with Nazi history, has died. Born in 1938, he was one of the last living artists with direct childhood memories of the Third Reich. His early works, such as *Die große Nacht im Eimer* (1961) and his upside-down German eagles, deliberately shocked postwar West Germany by depicting obscene, shameful images of a society trying to forget the Holocaust. He famously exhibited a zombie Hitler woodcarving at the 1980 Venice Biennale alongside Anselm Kiefer, insisting on confronting rather than ignoring the Nazi heritage of the German Pavilion.

newspaper The Guardian open_in_new Read original