About This Artwork
Georg Baselitz (Hans-Georg Kern)
German, born 1938
Woodman (Waldarbeiter)1969
Charcoal and synthetic resin on linen
254.6 x 204.5 cm (100 1/4 x 80 1/2 in.), framed
Signed and dated: recto: "G Baselitz 69" (lower right in reddish-brown paint); not inscribed on verso
Restricted gift of Mrs. Frederic G. Pick; Walter Aitken Fund, 1987.14
Modern and Contemporary Art
Not on Display
During the early 1960s, Georg Baselitz began producing representational images—characterized by thickly painted surfaces and often emotional and/or tragic themes—that drew inspiration from Germany’s artistic and cultural heritage. Between 1967 and 1969, Baselitz executed a series of Fracture Paintings, in which he segmented his subjects—animals, shepherds, and woodsmen—into horizontal bands or irregular fragments. Strung up sideways against a massive tree trunk, this woodsman heralded the artist’s trademark inverted figures, which first appeared soon after this painting’s completion. Conjuring a world gone mad, Woodman evokes the psychic and physical disorientation Germans experienced after their war-torn nation was partitioned in 1946. Indeed, Baselitz created this work after he left a divided Berlin to reside in a small German village.
Exhibition, Publication and Ownership Histories
Exhibition History
London, Anthony d’Offay Gallery, “Georg Baselitz: Paintings 1966–69,” November 10–December 3, 1982, pl. 14 (color ill.), [as “Woodmen"]
New York, Mary Boone Gallery, “Georg Baselitz,” November 21–December 23, 1987, n.pag. (color ill.), [as “Waldarbeiter”].
Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, “Georg Baselitz,” October 22, 1996–January 5, 1997, cat. 8 (color ill.), [as “Ohne Titel (Waldarbeiter)"].
London, Royal Academy of Arts, Georg Baselitz: A Retrospective, 22 Sep–9 Dec 2007. [as "Woodman (Waldarbeiter)"]
Publication History
“Annual Report 1986–1987” (Art Institute of Chicago, 1987), p. 29, fig. 17 (ill.).
“Georg Baselitz: Sculpture and Early Woodcuts,” exh. cat. (London: Anthony d’Offay Gallery, 1987), n.pag. (ill.), as “Woodmen/Waldarbeiter.”
Eleanor Heartney, “Georg Baselitz at Mary Boone,” “Art in America” 76, 7 (July 1988), p. 134.
Christos M. Joachimides et al., “Georg Baselitz: dipinti 1965–1987,” exh. cat. (Electa, 1988), p. 52 (photo).
Susan Kandel and Elizabeth Hayt-Atkins, “Georg Baselitz,” “ARTnews” 87, 3 (March 1988), p. 189.
Donald Kuspit, “Georg Baselitz: Mary Boone Gallery,” “Artforum” 26, 7 (March 1988), p. 134, as “Waldarbeiter (Forestworker), 1968.”
James N. Wood and Katharine C. Lee, “Master Paintings in the Art Institute of Chicago” (Art Institute of Chicago/New York Graphic Society Books and Little, Brown and Company, 1988), p. 160 (color ill.).
James N. Wood, “Treasures of 19th- and 20th-Century Painting: The Art Institute of Chicago” (Abbeville Press, 1993), p. 256 (color ill.).
James N. Wood and Teri J. Edelstein, “The Art Institute of Chicago: Twentieth-Century Painting and Sculpture” (Hudson Hills Press, 1996), p. 136 (color ill.).
Richard Shiff, “Georg Baselitz Grounded,” in “Negotiating History: German Art and the Past,” “Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies” 28, 1 (2002), pp. 62, 64–65, fig. 6 (color ill.).
Ownership History
Franz Dahlem, Darmstadt, Germany, 1970–1981; sold to Anthony d’Offay Gallery, London, 1981; sold to the Art Institute, 1987.