Georg Baselitz: Eroi d'Oro Exhibition review

By Baya Simons

Tomorrow, six days after the death of German painter Georg Baselitz, an exhibition of his final paintings will open in Venice.

Titled Golden Heroes, the show’s huge canvases are covered entirely in gold, over which Baselitz painted fine, inky drawings in scrawling lines, showing either him or his wife, nude and lying down, as if viewed from above. They will go on view at the Fondazione Giorgio Cini on the island of San Giorgio, a short boat ride from Venice, until 27 September.

Baselitz, who died peacefully last Thursday at the age of 88, knew it would be his last exhibition. In a video of him recorded for the opening, which he would have been too elderly to attend in person, he describes the works as “my last paintings”.

The painter, printmaker and sculptor goes on to say that, in making these works, he sought to create something that “would serve as a summary” and “be definitive”.

Opening the exhibition, curator Luca Massimo Barbero said it was the culmination of “60 years of thinking and painting”. “I’m very honoured to open, today, the show of a master,” he said, describing Baselitz as having given “rebirth to art history”.