Georg Baselitz (b. 1938)

Executed in 2006, Georg Baselitz’s suite of six linocuts Im Wald und auf der Heide (In the Woods and on the Heath) exemplifies the artist’s deft and emotive draughtsmanship. As a student in East Germany, Baselitz studied drawing and the practice has remained important part of his prolific career; the medium, he reflected, produces ‘fluid type of space…[where] you can break any kind of order or convention, quickly and precisely’ (G. Baselitz quoted in J. McKenzie, ‘Georg Baselitz: Wir fahren aus (We’re off)’, Studio International, 5 October 2016, https://www.studiointernational.com/index.php/georg-baselitz-wir-fahren-aus-we-re-off-review). Hand painted with delicate veils of watercolour, Im Wald und auf der Heide presents Baselitz’s iconic upside down motifs rendered here in insistent and immediate lines. In one, a path leads through a jagged forest of denuded branches. In another, an upside-down horse and rider make their way within the dense woodland. The forest is both the symbolic heart of the German psyche and personally resonant for the artist; as a young man, Baselitz applied to forestry school. Woodsman, lumberjacks and horseback riders populate his rural landscapes, and the expressive lines of Im Wald und auf der Heide demonstrate his continued engagement with these symbolic archetypes.