In Venice, the Monumental Farewell of Georg Baselitz at the Cini Foundation

The Fondazione Giorgio Cini on Venice's San Giorgio Maggiore island has opened "Georg Baselitz. Eroi d'Oro," an exhibition of the late German artist's final works, just one week after his death in 2026. The show, presented alongside the Venice Biennale, features monumental self-portraits and portraits of his wife Elke, painted over gold-leaf backgrounds. Created in the last two years of his life, these works represent Baselitz's ultimate creative gesture, synthesizing six decades of experimentation with his signature inverted figures and expressionist color, supported by Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac.

This exhibition matters because it offers a poignant and definitive coda to the career of one of Germany's most influential post-war artists, who died at nearly 90. The works confront art history by appropriating gold grounds from religious painting while maintaining Baselitz's intimate, vulnerable, and monumental approach. The show's timing—opening immediately after his death and concurrent with the Venice Biennale—amplifies its significance as both a farewell and a statement on the enduring power of artistic ambition in the face of mortality.