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Gallery Text

Strongly identifying with art that explored existentialist themes, including the work of Alberto Giacometti, and inspired by Philip Guston’s virtuosic brushwork, Baselitz’s so-called fracture paintings of the late 1960s deliberately disturb painterly conventions of perspective, pictorial unity, and propriety. In Curly Head a pastoral scene is disrupted by the straightforward depiction of masturbation. The composition is interrupted by the irreconcilability of its three parts, in which tree trunks imperfectly converge with legs, a penis with an axe. Such experimentation at the very limits of figuration would lead Baselitz in 1969 to paint his motifs upside down in an effort, according to the artist, to emphasize painterly effects over narrative or subject matter. Aware of the coercive power of representational painting in East Germany, where he was raised and trained, and the dominance of abstraction in West Germany, where he moved in 1956, Baselitz sought to challenge both modes of representation.

Identification and Creation

Object Number
2001.51
People
Georg Baselitz, German (Deutschbaselitz, Germany 1938 -)
Title
Curly Head
Other Titles
Original Language Title: Lockenkopf
Classification
Paintings
Work Type
painting
Date
1967
Culture
German
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/172846

Physical Descriptions

Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
160 x 129.5 cm (63 x 51 in.)
Inscriptions and Marks
  • Signed: on verso: G. Baselitz
  • inscription: verso, German, in artist's hand: G. Baselitz / 67 / Lockenkopf / [symbol of three crosses in an oval]
  • label: On stretcher bar: GEORG BASELITZ / "Curly Head" / 64" by 51" / oil/canvas / 1967 / MBG#4154 / MARY BOONE
  • label: On stretcher bar: James Cohan Gallery / 41 West 57th Street New York NY 10019 TEL 212 755 7171 / GEORG BASELITZ / Lockenkopf (Curly Head), 1967 / Oil on canvas / 63 X 51 inches / JCG171
  • label: On stretcher bar: Anthony d'Offay 9 and 23 Dering Street New Bond Street London... / GEORG BASELITZ / Curly Head 1967 / (Lockenkopf) / Oil on canvas / 162 x 130 cm / Exhibited: Georg Baselitz Paintings 1966-69 Nov-Dec 1982
  • label: On stretcher bar: THE PACE GALLERY / 32 East 57th Street New York 10022 212-421-3292 / Georg Baselitz #26593 / Lockenkopf (Curly Head) 1967 / Oil on canvas / 63 x 51" (160 x 129.5 cm)

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History
Georg Baselitz, Germany.
Anthony d'Offay Gallery, London, England.
Pedersen Collection, Denmark.
Private Collector, Germany.
Private Collector, Vancouver, Canada.

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line
Harvard Art Museums/Busch-Reisinger Museum, Edmée Busch Greenough Fund and Purchase through the generosity of Gabriele Geier, Edythe and Eli Broad, The Broad Art Foundation, Emily Rauh Pulitzer; and Melva Bucksbaum and Raymond Learsy in honor of James Cuno
Copyright
© Georg Baselitz
Accession Year
2001
Object Number
2001.51
Division
Modern and Contemporary Art
Contact
am_moderncontemporary@harvard.edu
Permissions

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Publication History

  • Peter Nisbet and Joseph Koerner, The Busch-Reisinger Museum, Harvard University Art Museums, ed. Peter Nisbet, Harvard University Art Museums and Scala Publishers Ltd. (Cambridge, MA and London, England, 2007), p. 25
  • Stephan Wolohojian and Alvin L. Clark, Jr., Harvard Art Museum/ Handbook, ed. Stephan Wolohojian, Harvard Art Museum (Cambridge, 2008), p. 234, ill.

Exhibition History

  • Re-View: S118 European & American Art since 1900, Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Cambridge, 09/13/2008 - 04/09/2011
  • 32Q: 1330 Mid-Century Figurative, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 11/16/2014 - 08/11/2017

Verification Level

This record has been reviewed by the curatorial staff but may be incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of Modern and Contemporary Art at am_moderncontemporary@harvard.edu