Although Baselitz, who paints his works on the floor but inverts them on the wall to highlight their abstract qualities, is as much interested in the image as its content, he is aware of the eagle’s symbolism throughout history. In Germany, it is both an emblem of the Third Reich and the contemporary Federal Republic. Baselitz, who recalls as a child helping a wildlife photographer capture images of eagles for a book, has repeatedly painted this bird of prey. In the 1950s, he depicted eagles fighting in air over mountains, perhaps as a representation of his own move from East to West Germany. In the 1970s, he made several famous ‘finger paintings’ of eagles seeming to crash to earth, one of which was – famously and controversially – displayed in the office of German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder in 2003.

This edition is available in two colour variations.