Georg Baselitz at White Cube New York

A painter, sculptor, printmaker and draughtsman, Georg Baselitz is one of Germany’s most celebrated living artists, with a distinguished career spanning over sixty years. A new presentation in White Cube’s New York Office, at 699 Madison Avenue, features a series of drawings made over the summer of 2021 that express the artist’s sensibility and current interests through familiar motifs.

Made from memory in one sitting, these experimental and dynamic compositions in red and black India ink reconsider past bodies of work and individual images that the artist considers important. Four works are loosely based on the seminal portrait of Baselitz’s wife, Portrait of Elke I (1969), which marked the beginning of the artist’s trademark inversion of his images and was recently donated by the artist to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Also on display are drawings derived from the well-known painting Schlafzimmer (Bedroom) (1975) alongside new self-portraits and depictions of Elke. These drawings are the latest in a broader series of images made in a wide range of styles over many years, which reflect the changing bodies and mind-sets of both members of an artistic marriage.