Georg Baselitz - Contemporary Art Evening Sale London Monday, June 28, 2010 | Phillips

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  • Provenance

    Cumulus Studios, New York; Private collection, Germany
     

  • Catalogue Essay

    Having arrived at sculpture relatively late in his career, the German artist Georg Baselitz has produced a body of work in that medium worthy of Picasso and de Kooning, the two other major paintersturned- sculptors of the 20th century. But rather than look towards the Western tradition in this medium, Baselitz has been inspired by the combination of the freshness of so much of African sculpture and the heritage from which it has come. The present lot is an imposing, totem-like statue executed in black-painted steel and crowned by a double-headed eagle. Grand and austere, the work has an official quality to it, almost as if it were commissioned by the state under the Third Reich. But as well as being an important emblem for Germany, the eagle has long held a symbolic meaning in world history, not to mention as a motif throughout Baselitz’ own work.
    “I am not interested in adopting the elevated cultural vantage point of European sculpture and making use of all its sophisticated refinements. I set out to formulate things as if I were the first one, the only one, as if the precedents did not exist.” (The artist, quoted in Georg Baselitz, exh. cat., Guggenheim Museum, New York, 1995, p. 100)

29

Scarecrow (Eagle)

2009
Bronze and black painted stainless steel.
250 x 100 x 100 cm (91 x 40 x 40 in).
Incised ‘GB' and numbered of ten on one of the wings. This work is from an edition of ten and is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity signed by the artist.

Estimate
£150,000 - 200,000 

Contemporary Art Evening Sale

29 June 2010
London