Neo-Expressionism
Neo-Expressionism was the return of large, figurative, emotionally charged painting in the late 1970s and 1980s, after a decade dominated by Minimal and Conceptual art; its heartland was Germany, with Georg Baselitz, Anselm Kiefer and A. R. Penck, and its New York star was Jean-Michel Basquiat.
The German painters had been at it for twenty years before the term arrived. Georg Baselitz, who had moved from East to West Berlin, caused a scandal in 1963 when two of his paintings were seized by the public prosecutor, and in 1969 began painting his subjects upside down. A. R. Penck, still in Dresden, developed his stick-figure 'Standart' signs; Anselm Kiefer took on German history and myth in huge, layered canvases of straw, lead and ash. In 1981 the exhibition A New Spirit in Painting at the Royal Academy in London, and Zeitgeist in Berlin the following year, showed them alongside the Italians of the Transavanguardia, Sandro Chia, Francesco Clemente and Enzo Cucchi, and Americans such as Julian Schnabel.
In New York it was a market phenomenon as much as an artistic one: Basquiat, who moved from the graffiti tag SAMO to painting in 1980 and 1981, Schnabel with his plate paintings, David Salle and Eric Fischl were the most visible painters of a booming decade. In Germany a younger generation, the Junge Wilde, Martin Kippenberger, Albert Oehlen, Bernd Zimmer, Rainer Fetting and Salomé among them, painted with deliberate crudeness and irony. In France it was Figuration Libre, with Robert Combas; in Scotland, a group of Glasgow School of Art graduates, Peter Howson, Ken Currie, Steven Campbell and Adrian Wiszniewski, the New Glasgow Boys.
At a glance
- When
- late 1970s to 1980s
- Where
- Germany, Italy, New York and Britain
- Leading artists
- Georg Baselitz, A. R. Penck, Anselm Kiefer, Martin Kippenberger
Characteristics of Neo-Expressionism
- The figure returns
- The human body, landscape and history painted again.
- Rough handling
- Thick paint, fast brushwork and deliberate crudeness.
- Scale and matter
- Very large canvases, sometimes with straw, lead, broken plates or found objects.
- History and myth
- Above all in Germany, where the war and national memory were the subject.
- Energy and irony
- Expressionist violence, often with a knowing, ironic edge.
Neo-Expressionist artists
Every artist below has a page on this site, with a short biography and what a valuation of their work turns on.
Germany
- Georg BaselitzTurned the subject upside down in 1969 and kept painting it that way for more than fifty years.
- A. R. PenckPainted stick figures as a private code in East Germany, under a name that was not his.
- Anselm KieferMakes enormous paintings out of lead, ash, straw and German history.
- Martin KippenbergerMade bad painting deliberately, ran a nightclub, and produced more in forty-four years than most do in eighty.
- Albert OehlenSet out to paint badly on purpose, and has spent forty years finding new ways to do it well.
- Bernd ZimmerNeue Wilde founder who left Berlin for the Alps and has painted landscape at speed ever since.
France and Scotland
- Robert CombasFounded Figuration Libre in a punk-adjacent France and filled every inch of the canvas.
- Peter HowsonNew Glasgow Boy who went to Bosnia as a war artist and painted what it did to him.
- Ken CurrieGlasgow painter of heroic workers, then of damaged bodies and the stark Three Oncologists.
- Adrian WiszniewskiNew Glasgow Boy of dreaming young men in gardens, drawn with a decorative, unhurried line.
Famous Neo-Expressionist works
- The Wood on Its HeadGeorg Baselitz, 1969, Museum Ludwig, Cologne
- MargaretheAnselm Kiefer, 1981
- Untitled (Skull)Jean-Michel Basquiat, 1981, The Broad, Los Angeles
- Hollywood AfricansJean-Michel Basquiat, 1983, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
What a valuation turns on
Much Neo-Expressionist painting was bought new from galleries in the 1980s, so it tends to come back to market with clear provenance, and the gallery invoice is the first document to find. What separates one work from another is period, scale and subject: for Baselitz, the Heroes of the 1960s and the early upside-down paintings against later work; for Kiefer, the major canvases against works on paper and books; for Basquiat, the years from 1981 to 1983 against what came after.
Basquiat needs the most care. The committee that authenticated his work was dissolved in 2012, works without its certificate or a place in the catalogues are examined very closely, and fakes are common. Penck, Baselitz and Kippenberger made many prints and multiples, which are much of what is offered, and are catalogued.
Common questions
What is Neo-Expressionism?
Neo-Expressionism is the return of large, rough, figurative and emotionally charged painting in the late 1970s and 1980s, in Germany, Italy, the United States and Britain, after the cool, idea-led art of Minimalism and Conceptualism.
Who were the Neo-Expressionist artists?
Georg Baselitz, Anselm Kiefer, A. R. Penck, Jörg Immendorff and Markus Lüpertz in Germany; Sandro Chia, Francesco Clemente and Enzo Cucchi in Italy; Jean-Michel Basquiat, Julian Schnabel and David Salle in New York.
Was Basquiat a Neo-Expressionist?
He is usually counted among them. His raw, energetic, figurative painting of the early 1980s, full of words, symbols and crowned heads, made him the best-known painter of the movement in New York, though his work also comes out of graffiti, jazz and his own reading of art history.
What is the difference between Expressionism and Neo-Expressionism?
Expressionism was the movement of 1905 to the 1920s, in Germany and Austria. Neo-Expressionism, from the late 1970s, revived its distortion, raw handling and emotional charge, often with a self-conscious, ironic or historical edge.
How do I sell a Neo-Expressionist painting?
Send photographs of the front, the back and the signature, with the gallery invoice and any certificate, for a free, confidential valuation. We check the work against the catalogue and the artist's foundation where there is one, then compare a confidential private sale with auction.
