Georg Baselitz

Georg Baselitz, pseudonym of Hans-Georg Kern (Saxony, 1938), is one of the most outstanding European artists of the second half of the 20th century, and can be considered as a descendent of Munch, Matisse and Tàpies. Within the context of postwar German art he has been, and is, on of the most genuine and original figures, at the margins of artistic schools and movements. A key moment in his career was in 1956, when he saw The New American Painting exhibition in Berlin. Here Baselitz came across the work of artists like Pollock and Guston, representatives of abstract expressionism, which profoundly influenced him. Baselitz's work, whose most characteristic images are figures painted upside-down, is halfway between figuration and abstraction, and has often been erroneously included with neo-expressionism. After exhibiting in the most prestigious galleries and museums in the world, in 1995 the New York Guggenheim Museum organised his first retrospective. In Spain the artist has recently been awarded the International Julio González Prize, by the Valencian regional government. In October of this year he will be given the prestigious Praemium Imperiale, which is awarded by the Japan Art Association.