The great Friends,1965
Oil, canvas, Museum Ludwig, Cologne

Georg Baselitz is his stage name. Hans-Georg Kern has derived this from his birthplace Großbaselitz in Saxony. His paintings are part of provocative, modern painting. Baselitz became known from 1963 with a picture, a masturbating boy, and by hanging his pictures upside down to direct the viewer's gaze more on the colours and shapes. In the picture "The Great Friends" Baselitz shows two young people in tattered clothes, who seem to have escaped a fire storm barefoot with their lives. Patriotism fell by the wayside. The flag is in the dirt. The friends, the remains of the city and the surrounding rubble are presented in distorted proportions. The colours black, red and golden yellow dominate, there is an exceptional situation.

(own study of the artist's work)