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Executed just two years after the construction of the Berlin Wall and in the same year as his defining debut solo show, Georg Baselitz’s Drei Herzen represents a pivotal moment in the artist’s early career and the formation of his pictorial language. A powerful statement of Baselitz’s desire to depart from prevailing artistic trends and escape the turmoil unleashed by World War II, the present work shares the same sensationally shocking, visceral language of his famous Big Night Down the Drain, 1963. Here, three bulbous heads emerge from hearts in a saturated palette of fleshy reds, pinks, and bone-whites within an abstracted landscape. Showcasing the raw physicality of Baselitz’s brushwork, Drei Herzen reflects the emergence of an uncompromising artist with a unique figurative style rooted in personal memory and collective history.
[left] Edvard Munch, The Scream, 1893, Munch-musseet, Oslo, Norway, Image: Erich Lessing / Art Resource, NY [right] Georg Baselitz, Oberon, 1963-1964. Städel Museum, Frankfurt, Image: bpk Bildagentur / Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Main / Art Resource, NY, Artwork: © 2021 Georg Baselitz Rejecting the Socialist Realism taught at the Staatliche Hochschule für Bildende Künste, where he had enrolled in 1957, Baselitz embraced the German Expressionism that had been denounced by the Nazis. Taking his cue from the existential angst and embodied trauma explored by Edvard Munch, Antonin Artaud, and Samuel Beckett, Baselitz turned to heads as a recurring motif to anchor his examinations of the human condition. He drew particular inspiration from the hallucinatory work of the mentally ill, such as those he found illustrated in psychiatrist Hans Prinzhorn’s Die Bildnerei der Geisteskranken with which he was particularly absorbed at the time. Immediately recalling Chaim Soutine’s depictions of flesh that Baselitz had seen in 1959 after hitchhiking to Amsterdam, the striking physical presence of these heads anticipate the monumental heft of his own Heroes series and his later wood sculptures from the 1980s. Heavily outlined and forced into strange contortions, the three idols at once radically reduce and expand the heart elements, energized by Baselitz’s intense use of colour and handling of paint. Together, the occasional inverted position of the hearts, the subject of the head, and theme of severance introduce the leitmotifs that the artist would ultimately carry through his entire oeuvre.
The poets lay in the gutter
their bodies in the morass.
The whole nation’s spittle
floating on their soup
—Georg Baselitz and Eugen Schönebeck, Pandämonisches Manifest I (Pandemonic Manifesto I), 1961
[left] Chaim Soutine, Le Boeuf écorché, 1926, Stedelijk Museum, Netherlands, Image: Pictoright Amsterdam/Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam [right] Jean Fautrier, Tete d’Otage no. 1, 1944. The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles In the early 1960s, Baselitz collaborated with Eugen Schönebeck on writing “Pandemonic Manifestos,” a vehement expression of independence from the dominant artistic trends of the post-war years ostensibly designed as an advertisement for their joint exhibition by combining text and drawings. The second manifesto was dominated by prominently knotted heads that directly refer to the exaggerated curves of the three idols depicted in Drei Herzen. In their pictorial language and their invocation of “the discharges of the flesh,” these drawings also situate the present work in Baselitz’s words in the manifesto, “Pandemonic entrenchment that leaves no more hope”—finding close literary correlates in Antonin Artaud’s notion of a “Theatre of Cruelty,” as well as the fractured monologues and contorted bodies of Beckett’s most celebrated plays of the period.i
i Georg Baselitz, Pandämonisches Manifest II, quoted in Diane Waldman, “Georg Baselitz: Art on the Edge,” in Georg Baselitz, exh. cat., Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, 1995, p. 25.
Provenance
Ludwig Rinn, Munich
Galerie Neuendorf, Hamburg and Galerie Heiner Friedrich, Munich
Galerie Fred Jahn, Munich
The Dürckheim Collection (acquired from the above)
The Dürckheim Collection, Sotheby’s, London, June 29, 2011, lot 10
Acquired at the above sale by the present ownerExhibited
Munich, Galerie Verein und Staatsgalerie moderner Kunst, Georg Baselitz, April 1 - May 9, 1976, no. 5, p. 123 (illustrated, p. 49)
Munich, Kunsthalle der Hypo-Kulturstiftung; Edinburgh, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art; Vienna, Museum moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig, Palais Liechtenstein, Georg Baselitz: Retrospektive 1964-1991, March 20 - September 13, 1992, no. 1, n.p. (illustrated)
Brussels, Royal Museums of Art and History, From Tiepolo to Richter, European dialogue, May 24 - September 30, 2018Literature
Andreas Franzke and Edward Quinn, Georg Baselitz, Munich, 1989, no. 18, p. 266 (illustrated, p. 35)
Property from the Olbricht Collection
37
Drei Herzen (Three Hearts)
signed "Baselitz" lower right; signed with the artist’s initials, titled and dated “G.B. drei Herzen 1963” on the stretcher
oil on canvas
51 1/4 x 64 7/8 in. (130.2 x 164.8 cm)
Painted in 1963.
Estimate
$2,500,000 - 3,500,000
Sold for $2,450,000
Amanda Lo Iacono
Head of Auctions
New York
+1 212 940 1278
20th Century & Contemporary Art Evening Sale
New York Auction 23 June 2021
1
Cinga Samson
Two piece 1
Estimate $25,000 - 35,000
Sold for $378,000
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2
Jadé Fadojutimi
Untitled
Estimate $40,000 - 60,000
Sold for $390,600
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3
Salman Toor
Fort Greene
Estimate $100,000 - 150,000
Sold for $478,800
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4
Avery Singer
Untitled
Estimate $1,200,000 - 1,800,000
Sold for $4,144,000
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5
Matthew Wong
The Reader
Estimate $600,000 - 800,000
Sold for $2,329,000
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6
Winston Churchill
The Moat, Breccles
Estimate $1,500,000 - 2,000,000
Sold for $1,845,000
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7
Matthew Wong
Field in a Dream
Estimate $1,500,000 - 2,000,000
Sold for $2,934,000
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8
Jean Dubuffet
L'homme à la toque
Estimate $2,000,000 - 3,000,000
Sold for $2,571,000
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9
Emily Mae Smith
Waiting Room
Estimate $40,000 - 60,000
Sold for $756,000
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10
Nicole Eisenman
Whatever Guy
Estimate $600,000 - 800,000
Sold for $840,700
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11
Norman Lewis
Abstract City
Estimate $800,000 - 1,200,000
Sold for $1,119,000
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12
Jean-Michel Basquiat and Andy Warhol
Bananas
Estimate $4,000,000 - 6,000,000
Sold for $4,300,000
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13
David Hockney
A Neat Lawn
Estimate $9,500,000 - 10,500,000
Sold for $11,000,000
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14
Vija Celmins
Untitled (Ocean)
Estimate $5,500,000 - 6,500,000
Sold for $7,748,000
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15
Carmen Herrera
Green and Orange
Estimate $2,000,000 - 3,000,000
Sold for $2,200,000
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16
This lot is no longer available.
17
Brice Marden
Elements III
Estimate $3,200,000 - 3,800,000
Sold for $5,233,000
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18
Amoako Boafo
Untitled
Estimate $80,000 - 120,000
Sold for $655,200
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19
Titus Kaphar
Untitled III
Estimate $300,000 - 400,000
Sold for $1,058,500
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20
Amy Sherald
It Made Sense...Mostly In Her Mind
Estimate $500,000 - 700,000
Sold for $3,539,000
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21
Wayne Thiebaud
Winding River
Estimate $6,000,000 - 8,000,000
Sold for $9,809,000
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22
Mark Rothko
Untitled
Estimate $3,500,000 - 4,500,000
Sold for $3,700,000
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23
Jean-Michel Basquiat
Batman
Estimate $1,600,000 - 2,000,000
Sold for $1,800,000
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24
Keith Haring
Untitled (For John Sex)
Estimate $800,000 - 1,200,000
Sold for $899,000
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25
Takashi Murakami
Red Demon and Blue Demon with 48 Arhats
Estimate $3,500,000 - 4,500,000
Sold for $6,080,000
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26
Gerhard Richter
Abstraktes Bild (940-2)
Estimate $4,500,000 - 5,500,000
Sold for $5,112,000
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27
Joan Mitchell
Untitled
Estimate $2,500,000 - 3,500,000
Sold for $3,902,000
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28
Willem de Kooning
East Hampton V
Estimate $700,000 - 1,000,000
Sold for $3,055,000
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29
Amy Sillman
Flower Giver
Estimate $300,000 - 400,000
Sold for $598,500
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30
Alexander Calder
Fourteen Black Leaves
Estimate $2,000,000 - 3,000,000
Sold for $2,300,000
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31
This lot is no longer available.
32
Julie Curtiss
Three Widows
Estimate $110,000 - 150,000
Sold for $466,200
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33
Norman Rockwell
My Mother (Soldier with French Woman)
Estimate $350,000 - 500,000
Sold for $504,000
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34
Richard Prince
Nurses Dormitory #3
Estimate $800,000 - 1,200,000
Sold for $1,482,000
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35
Mickalene Thomas
Portrait of Jessica
Estimate $200,000 - 300,000
Sold for $1,542,500
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36
Andy Warhol
Mao
Estimate $3,500,000 - 4,500,000
Sold for $3,000,000
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37
Georg Baselitz
Drei Herzen (Three Hearts)
Estimate $2,500,000 - 3,500,000
Sold for $2,450,000
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38
Carl Andre
36 Copper Square
Estimate $2,500,000 - 3,500,000
Sold for $2,692,000
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39
Robert Rauschenberg
Untitled (Elemental Sculpture)
Estimate $250,000 - 350,000
Sold for $315,000
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40
Bruce Nauman
Musical Chair
Estimate $1,000,000 - 1,500,000
Sold for $1,482,000
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41
David Hammons
It’s Not Necessary
Estimate $800,000 - 1,200,000
Sold for $5,475,000
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42
Andy Warhol
Shadow (Double)
Estimate $800,000 - 1,200,000
Sold for $877,000
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43
Toyin Ojih Odutola
Quality Control
Estimate $150,000 - 200,000
Sold for $340,200
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44
Robert Colescott
Gift of the Sea
Estimate $300,000 - 500,000
Sold for $504,000
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45
Dana Schutz
Swiss Family Traveling
Estimate $1,200,000 - 1,800,000
Sold for $1,482,000
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46
Banksy
Love Is In The Air
Estimate $1,000,000 - 2,000,000
Sold for $1,179,500
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47
Keith Haring
Untitled
Estimate $1,000,000 - 1,500,000
Sold for $1,482,000
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48
Louise Bourgeois
Labyrinthine Tower
Estimate $550,000 - 750,000
Sold for $756,000
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49
Paul McCarthy
White Snow Dwarf (Doc)
Estimate $400,000 - 600,000
Sold for $403,200
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50No Reserve
Jeff Koons
Gazing Ball (Demeter)
Estimate $400,000 - 600,000 •
Sold for $998,000
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