German Artist Georg Baselitz Dies at 88

German artist Georg Baselitz, renowned for his provocative postwar paintings and upside-down motifs that confronted national trauma, died on April 30 at the age of 88.

The Thaddaeus Ropac gallery, which represented Baselitz for over two decades, confirmed the death and stated that he passed away peacefully. No cause was disclosed. Born Hans-Georg Bruno Kern on January 23, 1938, in the Saxon village of Deutschbaselitz, he later adopted the name of his birthplace. His early years unfolded amid the collapse of Nazi Germany and the ideological strictures of Soviet-occupied East Germany. His father, a schoolteacher and Nazi Party member, was barred from teaching after the war, with Baselitz's mother assuming those duties.

Baselitz was rejected by the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts at 17 and gained entry to an academy in East Berlin, only to be expelled after two semesters for "sociopolitical immaturity." In 1957, he moved to West Berlin, where he completed his studies and encountered abstract expressionism, including works by Jackson Pollock. He drew instead from German expressionism and folk traditions, rejecting American styles and conceptual trends to focus on raw, figurative bodies.