Georg Baselitz Blick aus dem Fenster [View out of the Window], 1982

Georg Baselitz’s works from the 1980s marked a shift towards a freer, more expressionist application of paint and use of colour, resulting in works of astonishing vigour and formal power. In Blick aus dem Fenster (1982), the roughly articulated head emerges from the murky depths of the gestural black background, balanced against the white round of the moon. The figure’s facial features are coarsely articulated in red and black lines against the underlying yellow, reduced to essentials that convey the impression of a face without actually depicting one.

All kinds of new things emerged in his paintings [from the 1980s], along with different variations in the painter’s signature style, which was always energetic and restless. Even now I am captivated by their ingenuity and restlessness. Now I see more clearly that Baselitz always wants to make each painting (or every group of paintings) completely new, something that has never been made before. — Rudi Fuchs, 2018