(born in Deutschbaselitz, Saxony in 1938)
Untitled, 2005, signed and dated, Ink pen, watercolor, gouache and ink on paper, 200 x 70 cm (two parts), framed

Provenance:
Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Paris-Salzburg (label on the reverse, certificate available)
Galerie Kaj Forsblom, Helsinki
European Private Collection

Exhibited:
Schwäbisch Hall, Kunsthalle Würth, Georg Baselitz: Top, September, 27th 2008 – March, 22nd 2009, p. 94/95 (Ill. in colour)

„I want to be neutral, but I realize that I can’t be totally neutral. But that’s what I try to be. I try to keep a neutral attitude but it’s impossible to stop personal things from getting mixed up with it. 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. Neutrality is a myth, but you cannot give up the fight. You have to fight the conventions of the genre and the subject itself in order to make something new. The point of portraiture is to leave the portrait behind so that you can go forward"

G. Baselitz, quoted in M. Auping, Georg Baselitz: Portraits of Elke, exh. cat., Museum of Modern Art, Fort Worth, 1997-1999, p. 30.