Untitled (Fahne)

Created in 1965 during his residence at Villa Romana in Florence, Untitled (Fahne) and Untitled (Schweinekopf) (Lot 49) are exquisite examples of Baselitz's early devotion to drawings, and the result of the artist’s deep reflection upon and response to Mannerism, and more generally, Italian Art. Whimsical in their lines and captivating in their undecipherable figures, these two drawings are among the first attempts by Georg Baselitz “at finding his own voice” (D. Waldman, Georg Baselitz, exh. cat., The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, 1995, p. 18) and hold a special place within the artist’s oeuvre of works on paper for showing the embryonal phases of Baselitz’s unique figurative style.

In these drawings, the line of black ink reigns supreme, often performing whimsical contortions and creating mysterious figures, others outlining sinuous and captivating shapes. It takes the onlooker into an emotionally unstable universe on paper loaded with visible influences from Mannerist art. Baselitz’s early interest in Mannerism with its “distorted forms”, “the mood profoundly disturbing” and its “addiction to excess” (Ibid., pp.27-29),—as himself declared in the early manifesto Pandamonium in 1962—grew through the closeness to the Masters of Mannerism like Agnolo Bronzino, Jacopo Montoro, and Rosso Fiorentino, whose work he could admire in person at the Uffizi Gallery and Galleria dell’ Accademia in Florence. In Untitled (Fahne), Baselitz combines ornamental motives, female figures, and obscured puppy or toy-like animals to transform perhaps the white paper into a draped Fahn, flag in German, where the ornamental excess of the fabric appears in the serpentine stokes on the edges and the central whip motif. While Untitled (Fahne) carries the mannerist touch in its extremely packed and elaborate composition, Untitled (Schweinekopf) (Lot 49) depicts a pig, a subject rooted in the legacy of the 16^th century fascination for animals and their employment, along with fantastic decorative creatures, to surprise the viewers.

Visual clues of Baselitz’s earlier artistic influences, like Jean Fautrier, Jackson Pollock, and Philip Guston transpire through the pathos of the black line, the immediacy of the strokes, and the uncanny figuration of the works. However, the encounter with the unparalleled collection of the Florentine museums and the time Baselitz spent reading about Italian Art in the library and in the image library of the famous Kunsthistorisches Institute, located in the beautifully frescoed Palazzo Capponi-Incontri, provided the then-young artist of the refreshing opportunity to dialogue with the Old Masters, and opened the door for creative reinterpretation in the pursuit of a more mature language. Untitled (Fahne) and Untitled (Schweinekopf) are then important witnesses of Baselitz’s time in Italy, as well as of the cruciality that the Florentine art residency had in Baselitz’s artistic journey. Through drawings, the artist succeeded to express his young, curious, artistic vitality, the one at the very base of his signature figurative style founded upon “on collective history and personal memory”(Ibid., pp.27-29).