Portrait of Elke I
Baselitz met his future wife, Elke Kretzschmar, in 1958 when they were both art students, yet more than a decade passed before she first appeared in his work. Based on a photograph turned upside down, this painting demonstrates Baselitz’s interest in inversion—a strategy that enabled him to neutralize personal content and eliminate individual expression in order to focus on the possibilities of painting itself. Yet the artist conceded that with Elke the matter was complicated: "I don’t illustrate Elke. If anything, I try to remove her, but I usually can’t. She comes into the process whether I want it or not, through the back of my mind." The resulting work is foundational in multiple ways. Not only did Baselitz revisit this particular composition with its frontal gaze and restrained stance in later works, but he would make Elke his most enduring subject, painting her numerous times throughout his career.
Artwork Details
- Title: Portrait of Elke I
- Artist: Georg Baselitz (German, born Deutschbaselitz, Saxony, 1938)
- Date: 1969
- Medium: Synthetic resin emulsion paints (Dispersionsfarbe) on canvas
- Dimensions: 63 3/4 × 51 3/16 in. (162 × 130 cm)
- Classification: Paintings
- Credit Line: Gift of the Baselitz Family, 2020
- Object Number: 2020.129.6
- Rights and Reproduction: © Georg Baselitz 2022
- Curatorial Department: Modern and Contemporary Art
More Artwork
A slider containing 5 items.
Press the down key to skip to the last item.
Press the down key to skip to the last item.
Georg Baselitz
1995
Georg Baselitz
1980
Georg Baselitz
1983
Georg Baselitz
1969
Georg Baselitz
1969
Related Content
Publications
Books, guides, and catalogues published by The Met.
Research Resources
The Met provides unparalleled resources for research and welcomes an international community of students and scholars. The Met's Open Access API is where creators and researchers can connect to the The Met collection. Open Access data and public domain images are available for unrestricted commercial and noncommercial use without permission or fee.
To request images under copyright and other restrictions, please use this Image Request form.
Feedback
We continue to research and examine historical and cultural context for objects in The Met collection. If you have comments or questions about this object record, please complete and submit this form. The Museum looks forward to receiving your comments.