Contemporary Art London
By Maria Pia Masella
Georg Baselitz: The Heroes
Hurt by their past, alienated from their present, with just the option of being outsiders to face their future
In 1965, working feverishly as an artist in residence at Villa Romana in Florence, Baselitz began the series of works known today as “The Heroes” or “The New type.” Oils, drawings, and prints depicting colossal, solitary figures with small heads standing against a desolate background. Wounded, mutilated, and dressed in faded, tattered military uniforms, these figures seem to emerge from the destruction of World War Two with a sense of alienation. There is nothing conventionally heroic about them, they are survivors counting on their physical presence to confront the unrecognisable new world they inhabit.
