Die Mädchen von Olmo II (The Girls from Olmo II) 1981 Fresh out of the Retrospective of works by Georg Baselitz (born 1938), I am feeling exhilarated. It is the kind of exhibition where you may have to take your courage in both hands to enter - but once you are inside you are bowled over! It is most satisfying to see how an artist progresses- in this case over 60 years- rather than seeing one work in a museum and thinking "What's all this about?" Georg Baselitz (the name he took from his native village in Saxony- real name: Hans-Georg Bruno Kern) is a marvelous plastician. The paintings have a size and depth which no book image can convey. The sculptures are powerful, primitive. The vivid colours of the above painting, inspired by the sight of Italian girls bicycling on a square, are reminiscent of the bright colours used by the 'Die Brucke' movement of German expressionists. Baselitz, well-researched and well-read, has taken into account all the art movements o...