The best-loved painting by Georg Baselitz is Supper in Dresden (1983), which hangs in the Kunsthaus Zürich, Zurich. Der Ausgang - Karl (1987) and Female Nude on a Kitchen Chair (1979) come next among the canvases readers know best. Our catalogue holds 24 works by Georg Baselitz: here are the 24 most famous, each with its year, its museum and what makes it memorable.
Ranked by our popularity score, which combines the searches, visits and orders for each work. Updated October 2026.
In the vast, commanding expanse of Supper in Dresden, viewers are invited into a world where reality is turned on its head—quite literally. This monumental oil on canvas, stretching over four meters in length, serves as a profound testament to the genius of Georg Baselitz, one of the most provocative voices of the Neo-Expressionist movement. At first glance, the painting presents a chaotic, almost feverish gathering around a long dining…
A man stands within the frame, his form caught in a moment of heavy gesture. He wears a black suit and a tie, yet his shape is distorted, pulled by an unseen tension. His arms reach upward, breaking the stillness of the composition. The canvas holds him in a clash of primary tones, where deep blues meet a sharp, bright yellow. A checkered pattern cuts through the scene, adding a…
Georg Baselitz's "Female Nude on a Kitchen Chair," created in 1979, isn’t merely a depiction of a woman; it’s a raw, unsettling excavation of the human condition. Emerging from the aftermath of World War II and deeply rooted in the fractured landscape of post-war Germany, Baselitz's work consistently grapples with themes of destruction, memory, and the inherent instability of representation. This particular piece embodies these concerns with an arresting intensity,…
Painted from a snapshot turned upside down, this portrait of the gallerist Franz Dahlem, part of a group of portraits of the artist’s friends and intimates, has a…
The four subjects that return most often on these canvases, each with its best-loved example.
The 8 museums that hold the most of the paintings on this page.
| Museum | City | Works by Georg Baselitz | Paintings from this list |
|---|---|---|---|
 Bavarian State Painting Collections |
Munich | 4 | Three Field Workers, Sea Swallow, Picture Sixteen |
 Statens Museum For Kunst |
Copenhagen | 4 | Untitled, Landscape with Shoe, Female Landscape |
 Städel Museum |
Frankfurt | 3 | Oberon (1. Orthodoxer Salon 64 - E. Neijsvestnij), Acker, Eagle |
 Albertina Klosterneuburg |
Klosterneuburg | 2 | Der Ausgang - Karl, Vorwärts Wind (Remix) |
 Kunsthaus Zürich |
Zurich | 1 | Supper in Dresden |
 Tate Britain |
London | 1 | Female Nude on a Kitchen Chair |
 Museum Ludwig |
Cologne | 1 | Model for a Sculpture |
 Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe |
Carlsruhe | 1 | Fixed Idea |
Georg Baselitz's "Female Nude on a Kitchen Chair," created in 1979, isn’t merely a depiction of a woman; it’s a raw, unsettling excavation of the human condition. Emerging…
In the vast, commanding expanse of Supper in Dresden, viewers are invited into a world where reality is turned on its head—quite literally. This monumental oil on canvas,…
Supper in Dresden (1983), Kunsthaus Zürich, Zurich. Der Ausgang - Karl (1987) and Female Nude on a Kitchen Chair (1979) follow.
Georg Baselitz, born in 1938, was 45 years old: Supper in Dresden dates from 1983.
Supper in Dresden, Der Ausgang - Karl, Female Nude on a Kitchen Chair, Oberon (1. Orthodoxer Salon 64 - E. Neijsvestnij), Three Field Workers, Sea Swallow, Model for a Sculpture, Untitled, Der jäger and Fixed Idea. Each canvas in the ranking above comes with its year and its museum.
24 works by Georg Baselitz are in our catalogue, dated 1962 to 2015.
Mostly in Bavarian State Painting Collections (Munich), Statens Museum For Kunst (Copenhagen) and Städel Museum (Frankfurt); the list above names each museum and its canvases.
In 1980s, which gave 8 of the 24 works on this page, Supper in Dresden among them.
The earliest canvas here is Acker (1962); the latest is Di nuovo arrivato (2015).
Oil On Canvas, used in 2 of the 24 works on this page.
Neo-expressionism, as the canvases on this page show.
The Bavarian State Painting Collections, Munich holds 4 of the works on this page, among them Three Field Workers, Sea Swallow and Picture Sixteen.
Born Hans-Georg Bruno Kern on January 23, 1938, in the small German village of Deutschbaselitz, the artist who would become known to the world as Georg Baselitz was a child of profound transition and upheaval. Growing up in the Upper Lusatia region amidst the literal and metaphorical rubble of World War II, his early consciousness was inextricably linked to themes of destruction, displacement, and the fractured order of a shattered society. This formative environment—marked by the loss of community and the lingering trauma of occupation—became the bedrock of his artistic vision. The devastation he witnessed did not merely provide subject matter; it instilled in him an urgent, lifelong need to question established conventions and to explore the very nature of perception through the lens of a world that had been turned upside down.
His early artistic inclinations were nurtured by a deep intellectual curiosity and significant cultural encounters. The influence of his father, an elementary school teacher, fostered a disciplined approach to observation, while the profound writings of Jakob Böhme provided a spiritual and philosophical complexity to his worldview. A pivotal moment in his development occurred when he encountered Louis-Ferdinand von Rayski’s Wermsdorfer Wald at a local school assembly. This masterpiece of realism ignited a fascination with capturing visual truth, leading him to produce portraits, religious subjects, and landscapes that, even in his youth, hinted at a more futuristic and unsettling vision.
As the art world moved toward the sterile intellectualism of Minimalism and Conceptual Art in the 1960s, Baselitz staged a visceral rebellion. He became a leading voice of Neo-Expressionism, a movement that sought to reclaim the raw power and emotional intensity of figurative painting. However, his contribution was far from a simple return to tradition. In 1969, Baselitz introduced one of the most radical innovations in modern art: the technique of painting his subjects upside down. This deliberate inversion was not a mere gimmick; it was a profound attempt to strip the subject of its representational, content-driven character. By turning the figure on its head, he forced the viewer to confront the artifice of the painting itself—to look past the "what" of the image and focus instead on the texture, color, and the physical reality of the paint on canvas.
This period saw the emergence of works that challenged the very boundaries of the medium. His compositions often oscillated between recognizable figuration and a chaotic, feverish energy. In monumental pieces like Supper in Dresden, he reimagined historical narratives through a lens of disarray and chromatic collision, using striking shades of pink, blue, and black to create a sense of restless, uncontainable energy. His work during this era functioned as an excavation of the human condition, utilizing distortion to express vulnerability and the inherent instability of memory and identity.
Throughout his prolific career, Baselitz’s artistic language has been a complex tapestry woven from myriad influences, ranging from the starkness of Socialist Realism and the dramatic tension of Mannerism to the primal rhythms of African sculpture. This eclectic synthesis allowed him to create a body of work that feels both deeply rooted in German history and universally resonant in its exploration of existential struggle. Whether through his commanding oil paintings, his evocative sculptures, or his intricate graphic works, Baselitz has remained steadfast in his commitment to a style characterized by unsettling honesty.
The historical significance of Georg Baselitz lies in his ability to transform the trauma of the past into a revolutionary aesthetic for the future. He did not merely document destruction; he used it as a tool to rebuild the language of painting. His achievements include:
Today, Baselitz stands as one of the most influential figures of the twentieth century, a painter whose work remains a powerful testament to the resilience of creativity in the face of chaos.
