Germany Divided: Baselitz and his generation

Exhibition of prints at the British Museum of six artists from post War Germany from the Duerckheim collection.

All six artists Georg Baselitz, Markus Lupertz, Blinky Palermo, A.R. Penck, Sigmar Polke and Gerard Richter, had loved in East Germany but migrated to West Germany either in the 196os or early 1980s and the exhibition highlighted how this was reflected in their work.

I have to admit I didn’t find much of the work particularly attractive but I was interested in how they had been influenced by earlier work such as Baselitz’s reaction to seeing Mannerist paintings in Florence. 

I liked the fact the works were shown with earlier prints to place them in the tradition of German print making but felt the early works did show up the crude nature of the later work. Most modern prints hung alongside a Durer are going to come out of it badly!

Review
Telegraph

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