Baselitz. A Life In Print

Celebrating six decades of print making, A Life In Print is the first comprehensive book on an important part of Georg Baselitz’ artistic practice.

Considered to be one of the greatest painters alive and credited to have revived Figuration in a time when Abstraction ruled the art world, the German artist started to explore different print techniques beginning in 1964, and never stopped to see them as an integral part of his work. While his contemporaries used new offset and screen-print techniques to create what amounted to reproductions in often high editions, Baselitz rejected the Zeitgeist and explored century old techniques like dry point etchings, aquatinta, wood and linocuts, while tirelessly pushing his own artistic limits.

The book brings together more than 245 prints and introduces the reader to all major themes and motives of Baselitz career, from the so-called Heroes of the mid-60ies to his iconic images of Eagles to the manyfold portraits of his wife Elke. The book forcefully makes the point that no other artist since Picasso has done more for and in that genre than Baselitz.

Edited by Cornelius Tittel in close collaboration with the Baselitz Archive in Munich, the book features an anthology of the quintessential historic texts on Baselitz’ printmaking – amongst others by himself, fellow artist Per Kirkeby and art historians like Michael Semff and Reiner Michael Mason. A new essay by Frode Sandvik, curator at Kode Museum, explores the shared affinities in the print work of Edvard Munch and Georg Baselitz.