Georg Baselitz Vanille, 2020

The figure in Vanille (2020) is Georg Baselitz’s wife Elke, whose image has occupied a prominent position in his practice for over 50 years. ‘Throughout the centuries, the practice of portraiture has, in the end, represented the merging of two identities, that of the artist and his subject,’ writes Michael Auping. This painting forms part of the artist’s Speiseeis (Ice cream) series, in which the works are titled after different flavours and rendered in sorbet shades. 

Baselitz uses a transfer method in creating the works, introducing an element of chance into their compositions. He intensifies the intimacy and sensuousness of his motif in the heightened abstraction he achieves through this technique. As Philip Rylands describes, ‘The dense magma of pigment, of matière, typical of Baselitz’s more expressionistic works, is diluted here [...] These are lively and poetic creations.’