DRESDEN.- From 20th June until 25th August 2008 the Kupferstich-Kabinett (Collection of Prints, Drawings and Photographs) of the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden will be holding an exhibition featuring a selection of around 120 prints by Georg Baselitz from the private collection of Duke Franz of Bavaria. The works on show, all of which were created in the two decades between 1963 and 1983, include single impressions, series and rare trial proofs, none of which has previously been on public display. The exhibition has come about as part of a cooperation agreement with the Staatliche Graphische Sammlung Munich and is being presented to mark Georg Baselitz’s 70th birthday, which he will be celebrating on 23rd January this year. In the autumn of 2008 the exhibition will also go on show at the Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich.

Georg Baselitz is one of the most important contemporary German artists. He paints, draws and – since the late 1970s – creates sculptures. Early in his career, Baselitz also discovered graphic art, and his first etchings were produced at the start of the 1960s. From then on he experimented with a wide range of different techniques, such as drypoint and aquatint, and later with woodcut and linocut, and he gradually built up an independent body of works on paper. By taking up subjects that he also used in paintings and drawings – such as the human figure, landscapes or animals – but employing a new medium, he explored the specific potential of techniques such as etching or woodcut.

Baselitz is not concerned with editions and reproducibility but rather with the conditions created by a form of artistic expression that leads him into completely new realms of aesthetic experience.

The exhibition in the Dresden Kupferstich-Kabinett will present a selection of works from this very important sphere of Baselitz’s oeuvre. Among the works on show will be Baselitz’s first etchings, figural depictions of “heroes” from the mid-1960s, extracts from his portfolios entitled “Cows” (1969), “Eagles” and “Trees” (both 1974) and images in which the motifs are depicted upside-down, a feature that has been characteristic of his works since the end of the 1960s, the aim being to draw attention away from the content and towards questions of form and design.

In 1974 the first retrospective of prints by Georg Baselitz took place in the Städtisches Museum Leverkusen, Schloss Morsbroich; in 1984 the Staatliche Graphische Sammlung in Munich held an exhibition of the prints produced up to that time; and in 1989 a second overview of his works was displayed in Leverkusen. An exhibition of the calibre of this show of works from the collection of Duke Franz of Bavaria, an avid collector of contemporary art, is long overdue.

With this presentation, the traditional exhibition rooms of the Kupferstich-Kabinett on the third floor of the Residenzschloss (Dresden Palace) will be reopened after being closed for nearly two years owing to construction work on the Palace.

As well as a catalogue published by Hatje Cantz Verlag, there will also be a diverse range of events to accompany the exhibition. The events planned include a discussion with Georg Baselitz in the Residenzschloss on 18th June 2008, the showing of a film about the artist produced by the Dresden film-maker Marion Rasche, the presentation of the museum’s own Baselitz works in the Studiensaal of the Kupferstich-Kabinett, and various lectures and talks in the exhibition.