The neo-expressionist Georg Baselitz (actually Hans-Georg Kern) counts among the most important German artists of the past century.
It was as early as in the 1960s that Georg Baselitz, one of the key figures of "Pathetic Realism", contributed to the establishment of a new figurative art in the age of informal abstraction. With his harsh and provocative early works, which he described as pubertal later on, Georg Baselitz caused a lot of stir. During a single exhibition in 1963, two of his works were even confiscated by the authorities for reasons of obscenity. Six years later Georg Baselitz developed a new stylistic method, which would become a trademark of his art: He began to turn his paintings upside down, so that he could gain space for artistic problematizations beyond the motifs - landscape, interior, portrait. Besides making paintings, Georg Baselitz was also committed to (wood-) sculptures.
The New York Guggenheim Museum honored Georg Baselitz with a large retrospective in 1995.