This anthology brings together over 25 pieces of writing by, and interviews with, the German painter, Georg Baselitz. Known for his rebellious approach to Abstract Expressionism, here Baselitz's discusses the impression his paintings convey, the act of painting, his biography and much more. The artist's own writings cover topics as varied as his first trip abroad to other painters that he considers to be great. The texts shift between these personal pieces - most of which have never been published before - to interviews with Baselitz and a variety of critics and art historians. These conversations present a different voice as he responds to careful and critical questions about his work. Many of the writings and interviews are available in English for the first time. A unique perspective on Georg Baselitz, this collection offers a personal insight on the artist and his relationship to painting.

By the time Georg Baselitz (b. 1938) came to artistic maturity in Germany in the mid-1960s, he had renounced the gestural abstraction prevalent in Europe and America and developed a new aesthetic based upon the figure and its representation as an abstract image. His bold canvases - which began to feature his signature upside-down figures later in the decade - have brought him international recognition, but only now is his important career the subject of a comprehensive survey, organized by the Guggenheim Museum and traveling to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.; and the Nationalgalerie, Berlin. This monograph, by Guggenheim Deputy Director and Senior Curator Diane Waldman, documents every phase of the artist's career as a painter and sculptor. New translations of many of Baselitz's writings provide additional insight into his radical use of the figure in painting. A chronology, bibliography, and exhibition history are also included.

Ever since 1963, when East Berlin's renowned art academy, Hochschule der Kunste, expelled Georg Baselitz for what's been translated as "sociopolitical immaturity," and the police confiscated work from his first solo show, he's officially been an art-world bad boy. More than 40 years into his career, he's still literally turning his subjects upside down, and he is considered one of Europe's most influential painters. This collection of more than 100 works spanning from Baselitz's earliest years to the present day offers an unparalleled overview of his oeuvre, as well as insight into the subtle changes that have come to his work as he has matured: In recent years the distinctive visual universe that grew out of the artist's study of art, myth and literature has expanded to make room for the personal, for memories of an upbringing in the German and Slavic cultural borderland, for everyday life and his family and for revisiting works by himself and others.

Catalogue editor: Stefan Ratibor. With an essay by Rudi Fuchs, and chronology by Detlev Gretenkort.

Georg Baselitz is without a doubt one of the most important contemporary German artists. Particularly his upside-down motifs have made his work unmistakable since he first started standing them on their head in 1969. However, Baselitz cannot be solely reduced down to the level of this recognition value. This exhibition catalogue demonstrates in over 100 illustrations of central key works from all phases of his artistic career how multifaceted his work developed over the past 40 years. Aside from the versatility of his motifs, it becomes clear in the process that Baselitz's oeuvre is characterized by great craftsmanship and a compactness of expression. Starting with his early works from the 1960s reflecting upon the post-war period past the fracture pictures and the turning of the motif upside-down up to and including his dealings with his own early works in the Remix group, the book traces the development of one of the most fascinating oeuvre of our time based on paintings and sculptures, providing a lively lesson about these genres. Published on the occasion of the exhibition Georg Baselitz: 1960 ndash; 2008. A Retrospective at Museum der Moderne Salzburg, February ndash; June 2009. English and German text.