Cahiers d’Art is proud to announce an exhibition of prints by the renowned German artist Georg Baselitz, showcasing a remarkable selection from 1994 to 2020. This exhibition offers a rare opportunity to experience Baselitz’s printmaking mastery, including the Belle Haleine series, featuring three large-scale works that have rarely been exhibited since their creation over 20 years ago.

Georg Baselitz: Printmaking Mastery

In our gallery space at 14 rue du Dragon, we are presenting the highlight of the exhibition: three works from the Belle Haleine series, a monumental suite of ten provocative prints, regarded as the largest linocuts Baselitz has ever created. Each print, standing over two meters in height, depicts partially clothed, copulating couples, their forms derived from 19th-century erotic lithographs. In his signature style, Baselitz inverts the figures, disrupting any straightforward narrative and shifting the viewer’s focus to the act of mark-making itself. This inversion, a technique Baselitz has employed since 1969, resists literal interpretation, encouraging a more abstract engagement with the work.

The title Belle Haleine directly references Marcel Duchamp’s iconic readymade Belle Haleine, Eau de Voilette (Beautiful Breath, Veil Water), conceived in 1920 with the assistance of Man Ray. Duchamp’s work consisted of a perfume bottle with a modified label featuring his female alter ego, Rrose Sélavy—a playful pun on “Eros, c’est la vie” (Love [or sex], that’s life). Baselitz continues this theme of eroticism and humor, drawing on Duchamp’s irreverence while pushing the boundaries of printmaking with his colossal linocuts. This exhibition offers a rare chance to see three of these prints together, emphasizing Baselitz’s ongoing dialogue with art history and his exploration of provocative, confrontational themes.

Georg Baselitz’s printmaking is a vital extension of his broader artistic practice, which spans painting, sculpture, and drawing. His prints—whether in woodcut, aquatint, drypoint, or linocut—embody a direct, physical engagement with the medium, emphasizing both the process and the materiality of the work.

Woodcut holds a special place in Baselitz’s oeuvre. This centuries-old technique, deeply rooted in German art history from Dürer to the Expressionists, allows Baselitz to engage directly with the raw materiality of his medium. The rugged, almost primal energy of these works reveals Baselitz’s affinity for the rawness of the process, while his inversion of figures disrupts traditional readings of the image.

In contrast to the bold, graphic quality of his woodcuts, Baselitz’s aquatints reveal a different facet of his printmaking. Aquatint, which involves etching into metal plates, allows for greater subtlety and tonal variation. In these works, Baselitz explores softer, more nuanced contrasts of light and shadow while maintaining the expressive power of his subject matter. The finely worked surfaces of these prints capture a range of textures—from velvety blacks to translucent grays—offering a more intimate, contemplative look at his recurring themes. Even in this quieter, more subtle form, Baselitz’s aquatints retain the emotional intensity and defiant abstraction that characterize his work.

Baselitz’s prints reflect the same artistic concerns as his paintings and sculptures: the interrogation of historical memory, the tension between figuration and abstraction, and the constant redefinition of the human form. His prints invite the viewer to engage not only with the imagery but also with the physicality of the medium—how each cut, line, or wash of ink speaks to the act of creation.