The Facts
On October 13, 2026, Thaddaeus Ropac published an essay by critic Jonathan Jones on Georg Baselitz, the German painter who died this year, in connection with the London exhibition of his 'The Heroes' history paintings, which he helped plan. The series, begun in 1965, consists of colossal imaginary portraits responding to Germany's wartime past. Jones highlights 'Mit Rote Fahne' ('With the Red Banner'), showing an exhausted soldier holding a half-lowered red-and-black flag, and another Hero in shorts standing in a trashed, blood-stained landscape. He describes the paintings as a 'savage, merciless vision of modern history' freighted with horror, disgust and guilt.
The Signal
The essay gives a pointed frame to Baselitz's legacy at the moment of his death, presenting 'The Heroes' as an explicit reckoning with Holocaust-era guilt that postwar West Germany sought to bury. For collectors, the series represents a pivotal moment in Baselitz's early figurative output, and its display in London underlines sustained gallery and market interest in these history paintings. The works' ironic title and brutal imagery, Jones argues, retain their force as European wartime memory fades.
- Artists: Georg Baselitz
- People: Jonathan Jones
- Galleries: Thaddaeus Ropac
- Locations: London
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