Georg Baselitz, the German painter who turned postwar art upside down, dies at 88
Maria Martinez | Reuters | 1st May 2026
Baselitz was a provocative but consequential artist. Resisting the pull of 1950’s abstraction, he focused on the human form, using a style reminiscent of pre-war German Expressionism. It amplified his controversial focus on the “destroyed landscape… people [and] society” of post-war Germany. He often used the disorienting technique of painting figures upside-down. Late in life he opined that women “don’t paint very well”. The idea of “looking toward the future” is nonsense, he said. “Simply going backwards is better”.