Georg Baselitz (b. 1938) Joseph drove away the Bandura player with his Stuka (Joseph hat mit seinem Stuka die Banduraspieler verjagt); Untitled (Ohne Titel); Lucian and Frank en plein air (Lucian und Frank plein air); Untitled (Ohne Titel) from Mrs. Lenin and the Nightingale (four works), 2008 India ink and watercolor on paper 25-7/8 x 20-1/4 inches (66 x 51.3 cm) (largest work) Each work variously titled, inscribed, signed, and dated in 2008 PROVENANCE: White Cube, London; Private collection, Germany; Galerie Thomas, Munich; Zeit Contemporary Art, New York; Private collection, acquired from the above. EXHIBITED: White Cube, London, "Georg Baselitz: Mrs. Lenin and the Nightingale," February 13–March 21, 2009. LITERATURE: N. Rosenthal. Georg Baselitz: Mrs. Lenin and the Nightingale, London, 2009, pp. 78, 81, 84, 89 (each artwork illustrated in color). A central figure in postwar German painting, Georg Baselitz helped establish new possibilities for figurative art at a time when abstraction dominated much critical discussion. In 1969, he began turning his subjects upside down, making recognizable figures harder to read and directing attention toward their construction in paint. This approach became a defining feature of his work. Executed in 2008, these four drawings belong to Mrs. Lenin and the Nightingale, a series exhibited at White Cube in London in 2009 in a show curated by Norman Rosenthal. Baselitz combined the seated poses of Lenin and Stalin in a constructed photograph with the arrangement of the figures in Otto Dix's Portrait of His Parents (1924). The resulting pair brings the format of a family portrait into an unlikely encounter with political imagery. The title further unsettles the leaders' public identities. "Mrs. Lenin" refers to Lenin depicted in a skirt and heels, while "the nightingale" identifies Stalin through a poem by Johannes R. Becher. These characterizations introduce an irreverence far removed from the authority of official state portraits. Across the four sheets, the same inverted figures receive markedly different treatments. Fine ink lines describe faces, hands and clothing, while broader washes obscure parts of their bodies. Two drawings introduce blue, yellow, orange and green; the other two rely largely on black ink and exposed paper. Seen together, they allow the viewer to follow Baselitz's changes in emphasis, from the open structure of a line drawing to passages where accumulated ink begins to dissolve the figures. Inversion complicates this process of recognition. A face or hand draws the eye before its place within the body becomes clear, while splashes and loose strokes remain visible as marks in their own right. The historical subjects remain identifiable, but their appearance is continually disrupted by the handling of the medium. All four drawings were included in the White Cube exhibition and illustrated in the accompanying catalogue. Preserved as a group, they offer a particularly rare and direct view of Baselitz reconsidering a single composition through line, color and wash. HID12401132022 © 2026 Heritage Auctions | All Rights Reserved www.HA.com/TexasAuctioneerLicenseNotice

White Cube, London, "Georg Baselitz: Mrs. Lenin and the Nightingale," February 13 - March 21, 2009.

White Cube, London; Private collection, Germany; Galerie Thomas, Munich; Zeit Contemporary Art, New York; Private collection, acquired from the above