“One of the most celebrated contemporary German artists, Georg Baselitz (b. 1938) gained international recognition in the 1960s for revitalizing figurative painting. This exhibition celebrates the gift from Baselitz to the Morgan of fifty drawings covering the span of his entire career. On display are examples from the iconic Heroes series and fractured drawings of the mid-1960s; landscape and figure drawings from the 1970s, when Baselitz began turning his images upside-down to emphasize their structure and materiality over their subject; colorful pastels and watercolors from the 1980s and 90s; and a group of Remix drawings from the last twenty years, in which Baselitz revisits themes from his early works. Organized in collaboration with the Albertina Museum in Vienna, which is the recipient of a similar gift from the artist, the exhibition includes about sixty-five drawings. Combining sheets from both donations, it presents a retrospective of Baselitz’s artistic development and highlight the central role drawing plays in his practice.” — The Morgan Library & Museum
“We were thrilled – and honored – to be chosen as the beneficiary of this exceptional group of drawings, and to be able to make the choice in concert with our colleagues from the Albertina in Vienna to add this to the Morgan’s collection. This large and diverse selection of Georg Baselitz drawings represents a major acquisition for the Morgan, which over the last twenty years has expanded its collection to include significant examples of twentieth and twenty-first-century drawing,” said Colin B. Bailey, Director of the Morgan Library & Museum.
Organized in collaboration with the Albertina Museum in Vienna, which is the recipient of a similar gift from the artist, Georg Baselitz: Six Decades of Drawings is curated by Isabelle Dervaux, Acquavella Curator and Department Head, Modern and Contemporary Drawings. The curator of the exhibition at the Albertina is Antonia Hoerschelmann, Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art.