Baselitz met his future wife, Elke Kretzschmar, in 1958 when they were both art students, yet more than a decade passed before she first appeared in his work. Based on a photograph turned upside down, this painting demonstrates Baselitz’s interest in inversion—a strategy that enabled him to neutralize personal content and eliminate individual expression in order to focus on the possibilities of painting itself. Yet the artist conceded that with Elke the matter was complicated: "I don’t illustrate Elke. If anything, I try to remove her, but I usually can’t. She comes into the process whether I want it or not, through the back of my mind." The resulting work is foundational in multiple ways. Not only did Baselitz revisit this particular composition with its frontal gaze and restrained stance in later works, but he would make Elke his most enduring subject, painting her numerous times throughout his career.
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Cologne. Kunsthalle Köln. "Georg Baselitz: Gemälde, Handzeichnungen, und Druckgraphik," June 25–August 8, 1976.
Brussels. Société des Expositions du Palais de Beaux-Arts. "Peinture en Allemagne, 1981," May 27–July 12, 1981, unnumbered cat. (p. 40).
Cologne. Museum Ludwig. "Bilderstreit: Widerspruch, Einheit und Fragment in der Kunst seit 1960," April 8–June 28, 1989, no. 39.
Venice. Palazzo Grassi. "Biennale, 46 Esposizione Internazionale d'Arte. Identity and Alterity: Figures of the Body 1895–1995," June 11–October 15, 1995, no. VII 3.
Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. "Georg Baselitz: Portraits of Elke," October 26, 1997–January 25, 1998, no. 1 (as "Portrait Elke I," lent by a private collection).
Raleigh. North Carolina Museum of Art. "Georg Baselitz: Portraits of Elke," February 13–May 24, 1998, no. 1.
Pittsburgh. Carnegie Museum of Art. "Georg Baselitz: Portraits of Elke," June 27–September 13, 1998, no. 1.
Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Monterrey. "Georg Baselitz: Portraits of Elke," October 9, 1998–January 10, 1999, no. 1.
New York. Gagosian Gallery. "Georg Baselitz, The Turning Point: Paintings 1969–71," September 14–October 30, 2004, unnumbered cat. (p. 15).
Lausanne. Fondation de l'Hermitage. "Baselitz: Une seule passion, la peinture," June 30–October 29, 2006, no. 24.
Museo d'Arte Moderna, Lugano. "Georg Baselitz," May 6–September 23, 2007.
Museum der Moderne Salzburg. "Georg Baselitz: Gemälde und Skulpturen 1960–2008 / Painting and Sculpture 1960–2008," February 28–June 21, 2009, unnumbered cat. (p. 80).
Prague. Galerie Rudolfinum. "Georg Baselitz: Gemälde und Skulpturen 1960–2008 / Painting and Sculpture 1960–2008," September 9–December 6, 2009, unnumbered cat.
Washington, D.C. Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution. "Baselitz: Six Decades," June 21–September 16, 2018, unnumbered cat.
Staatsgalerie Stuttgart. "Baselitz, Richter, Polke, Kiefer: The Early Years of the Old Masters," April 12–August 11, 2019, unnumbered cat. (p. 81).
Hamburg. Deichtorhallen. "Baselitz, Richter, Polke, Kiefer: The Early Years of the Old Masters," September 13, 2019–January 5, 2020, unnumbered cat.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Georg Baselitz: Pivotal Turn," January 28–July 18, 2021, no catalogue.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Georg Baselitz: Gifts from the Artist," September 27, 2022–April 24, 2023.
Michael Auping. Georg Baselitz: Portraits of Elke. Exh. cat., Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. Fort Worth, 1997, pp. 12–13, 120, no. 1, ill. (color) front cover, p. 35.
Max Hollein inGifts of Art: The Met's 150th Anniversary. Ed. Jennifer Bantz et al. New York, 2020, p. 7.
Brinda Kumar inGifts of Art: The Met's 150th Anniversary. Ed. Jennifer Bantz et al. New York, 2020, pp. 146, 198, ill. p. 147 (color).
"Agenda: Kunstwelt. Zu Neuen Ufern." Weltkunst no. 182 (March 2021), p. 56.
Pamela Sticht inBaselitz: La rétrospective. Ed. Bernard Blistène. Exh. cat., Centre Pompidou, Galerie 1. Paris, 2021, p. 276, fig. 29 (color).
Georg Baselitz (German, born Deutschbaselitz, Saxony, 1938)
2015
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