Georg Baselitz Hannah Hirsch, 2022
The stag found in this 2022 ink drawing originates in the iconography of myth and legend that has informed Baselitz’s work from the start of his career and includes reprisals and subversions of nationalistically resonant motifs such as the eagle and forest imagery. The stag represents ties to alpine folklore but is also an emblem of masculine potency. Here, the animal is rendered through delicate brushwork, which tempers its symbolic power, over which Baselitz superimposes two disjointed pairs of stockinged legs. The motif recalls the feet and legs that have been a recurring theme since the artist’s very early works. For Baselitz, they are the symbol of a tactile connection with the earth. Oversized and elongated, with downward-turned feet as if standing on tiptoes or high heels – like Frida Kahlo’s artificial leg complete with its heeled red shoe – these elegant stockings appear far removed from the dirty, damaged limbs of Baselitz’s early work. Their ambiguous sensuality writes them into the extensive history of stockinged legs in art, from Edgar Degas’s ballerinas to Man Ray’s can-can dancers and Egon Schiele’s defiant nudes. Baselitz paints them as solid elements, contrasting with the surrounding line-drawn animal, giving the drawing a depth and a collage-like dimension – a nod to Hannah Höch’s photocollages: he has titled the work Hannah Hirsch (Hannah Stag) in a play on her name. Through this contrast, he creates a distinctive universe where the logic of collage coalesces with the fabric of ink drawing.
A group of over sixty of Baselitz’s drawings, covering the span of his entire career, is currently on view at the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York in an exhibition organised in collaboration with the Albertina Museum in Vienna.
