Elke Nude (Akt Elke)

Exhibition label: In 1962 Baselitz married Elke Kretzschmar, whom he had met in art school in West Berlin. "I never painted a portrait of my wife or any other woman until 1969," he said. "It was only when I started painting things upside down that I thought I could paint her, because everything then became more neutral. When you paint someone upside down it's difficult to give them an expression or at least a conventional expression. The result is something unpredictable." Baselitz's first images of Elke were straightforward representations. By the mid1970s he had adopted a freer, more economical style and suggested the figure with a few strokes. Elke does not pose for her portraits - the artist typically produces them from memory or using photographs.