Nachtessen in Dresden (Dinner in Dresden)

Nachtessen in Dresden (Dinner in Dresden) was executed contemporaneously to Georg Baselitz’s groundbreaking painting of the same subject, held in the collection of Kunsthaus Zürich. Depicting several figures seated at a long table, both the painting and drawing formally evoke the Last Supper and its long art historical legacy. Yet Baselitz’s scene also alludes to a historical moment, namely the meeting of the German Expressionists, avant la lettre, that led to the establishment of Die Brücke. The central, theatrical figure is said to be Karl Schmidt-Rotluff; to his left is Ernst Ludwigh Kirchner. On the right, the fantastical, two-headed body represents Erich Heckel and Otto Müller, who, in real life, shared a close friendship. In addition to Nachtessen in Dresden, Baselitz also portrayed the group—with the addition of Edvard Munch—in Der Brückechor (The Brücke Chorus).

These paintings were created at a moment when Baselitz was hailed for pioneering Neo-Expressionism, yet the artist—who always endeavoured to distance himself from the past—denied any connection to the Die Brücke. ‘People were starting to say that my works had a link with German Expressionism’, he explained. ‘In fact this only applies to the way I handle the canvas, my manual use of the canvas’ (G. Baselitz, quoted in D. Waldman, Georg Baselitz, exh. cat. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York 1995, p. 149). In Nachtessen in Dresden Baselitz contended with this inheritance by reorienting not simply his motif but also the image of history itself.