Georg Baselitz Has Passed Away at 88

In Memoriam

German artist Georg Baselitz, the artist who turned painting on its head and is one of the defining figures of postwar European art, has passed away at the age of 88. His passing on April 30, 2026, was confirmed by Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, which had a longstanding relationship with the artist, and the gallery stated that he died peacefully. The gallery described Baselitz as an artist who “defined German visual art for a generation.”

Born Hans-Georg Kern in Deutschbaselitz, Saxony, in 1938, Baselitz grew up in the aftermath of the Second World War and under the political conditions of East Germany. After studying in East Berlin, he moved to West Berlin in 1957 and adopted the name Georg Baselitz in 1961, referring to his birthplace. His first exhibition in West Berlin in 1963 caused public controversy when two paintings were confiscated by the authorities, marking the beginning of a career often shaped by confrontation, provocation, and resistance to artistic convention.

Baselitz became widely known for painting his subjects upside down, a method he first introduced in 1969. By inverting figures, trees, houses, eagles, and other motifs, he sought to detach the image from straightforward representation and emphasize the structure, materiality, and act of painting itself. This approach became his signature, placing his work between figuration and abstraction. Across more than six decades, Baselitz developed an extensive body of work spanning painting, drawing, printmaking, and sculpture. His Neo-Expressionist visual language repeatedly returned to the traumas of German history, including war, guilt, memory, and the divided postwar nation. His work is held in major museum collections worldwide and remains central to the history of contemporary German art.