Etching and drypoint on paper
Tate Collection
Works with images
General Collection
Collection
<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/georg-baselitz-699" aria-label="More by Georg Baselitz" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">Georg Baselitz</a>
with Dog and Axe
Purchased 1982
adults
animals: actions
animals: mammals
antihero
attacking
axe
displacement
dog - non-specific
emotions and human qualities
emotions, concepts and ideas
government and politics
history
man
military
objects
people
political protest
revolutionary
running
Russian Civil War 1918-21
social comment
society
tools and machinery
paper print etching drypoint
Untitled (with Dog and Axe)
image: 334 × 245 mm
Purchased 1982
<p><a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/baselitz-untitled-with-dog-and-axe-p07739" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>P07739</span></a> <b>Untitled (with Dog and Axe)</b> 1967
<br/>
<br/>Etching and drypoint 13 1/8 × 9 5/8 (334 × 245) on Richard de Bas paper 26 1/2 × 20 (672 × 509), printed and published by the artist
<br/>Inscribed ‘Baselitz 67’ b.r. and ‘7/20’
<br/>Purchased from Maximilian Verlag, Sabine Knust, Munich (Grant-in-Aid) 1982
<br/><i>Repr</i>: Fred Jahn, Baselitz Peintre-Graveur, 1, Bern-Berlin, 1983, p.91
<br/>
<br/>Unless otherwise stated all statements attributed to the artist in this and the following entries have been made in letters from Herr Detlev Gretenkort of 27 June and 10 August 1984 reporting answers by the artist to questions posed by the compiler. Herr Gretenkort is the artist's secretary.
<br/>
<br/><span>P07739</span> is one of a series of <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/print" title="Glossary definition for 'Print'"><span>prints</span></a> depicting woodmen, huntsmen and animals in the <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/l/landscape" title="Glossary definition for 'Landscape'"><span>landscape</span></a>. Here the dog and the woodmen are camouflaged within the landscape so that the landscape becomes almost anthropomorphic. In the first ‘Pandemonium’ manifesto, Baselitz refers to ‘Anthropomorphic pot-bellied putty rocks (without Archimboldi)...Redon in the fleece of a one-eyed sheep, in the garden where the soft-leaved plants have faces’ (Whitechapel Art Gallery exhibition catalogue, pp.23–4). The camouflage effect anticipates the so-called fracture <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/painting" title="Glossary definition for 'Painting'"><span>paintings</span></a> of 1967–9. According to the artist the woodmen refer ‘to the so-called “Grünen”, that are woodpartisans in the Russian Civil War’. He also states that they are neither asleep nor dead. Calvocoressi (ibid., p.14) writes that, ‘The verdant, rustic world of the fracture paintings reflects Baselitz's total isolation from society’ for in 1966 he moved from Berlin to the village of Osthofen, near Worms. Many of these works represent idyllic scenes but Baselitz's reference to the Russian Civil War may denote an underlying violence and rebellion. The axe is an instrument of death as well as a tool of trade.
<br/>
<br/>This entry has been approved by the artist.
<br/>
<br/><b>Published in:</b>
<br/><i>The Tate Gallery 1982-84: Illustrated Catalogue of Acquisitions</i>, London 1986
<br/>
<br/></p>

Catalogue entry
2004-10-13T00:00:00
catalogue-entry
CATALOGUE_ENTRY
adults animals: actions animals: mammals antihero attacking axe displacement dog - non-specific emotions and human qualities emotions, concepts and ideas government and politics history man military objects people political protest revolutionary running Russian Civil War 1918-21 social comment society tools and machinery