Georg Baselitz

Exhibition label: In 1989 the fall of the Berlin Wall and reunification of Germany allowed Baselitz to return to the Saxony region where he grew up, leading to series of works inspired by childhood memories. This drawing relates to a cycle of paintings devoted to the women who helped clean Dresden after it was massively bombed by the Allies in February 1945 - an event Baselitz witnessed at age seven. Referred to as Trümmerfrauen (rubble women), these women became symbols of postwar reconstruction. Baselitz made the paintings on plywood, which he slashed with cuts and scratches. The same suggestion of violence appears here in the quick strokes surrounding the head.