Georg Baselitz

Folkdance Melancholia

1989

Not on display

Artist: Georg Baselitz born 1938
Original title: Volkstanz Marode
Medium: Oil paint on canvas
Dimensions: Support: 2504 × 2510 × 58 mm
Collection: ARTIST ROOMS Tate and National Galleries of Scotland
Acquisition: ARTIST ROOMS Acquired jointly with the National Galleries of Scotland through The d'Offay Donation with assistance from the National Heritage Memorial Fund and the Art Fund 2008
Reference: AR00031

Online caption

This is one of a series of paintings that Baselitz painted in the first half of 1989, with the generic title of ‘Streubilder’ (or ‘Scatter Paintings’) or ‘Ciao America’. ‘Scatter Paintings’ describes the lack of a compositional focus in works like ‘Volkstanz Marode’. Its ‘pattern’ of tiles and heads is reminiscent of the all-over quality of American Abstract Expressionism, but the primitivist style and reference to folkdance are unapologetically European. Baselitz was at the forefront of European Neo-Expressionist painting from the 1960s onwards, which enjoyed massive popularity in the 1980s, and caused some to see European art eclipsing American art at the time. Ciao America!