On view at White Cube Bermondsey to 30 August 2026, the exhibition was conceived by Georg Baselitz in the last years of his life and completed shortly before his death in April 2026.

Monumental canvases in this spectacular Bermondsey gallery command each room with the authority that has long characterised Baselitz’s work. Figures hang upside down, golden backgrounds, eagles tumble through fractured skies and bodies twist into improbable configurations. Familiar motifs reappear, continue a lifelong exploration of possibilities and impossibilities.

Throughout his career Baselitz resisted narrative certainty. Since first inverting his figures in the late 1960s, he has used disorientation to shift attention away from subject matter and towards painting itself. In Back Again, that inversion acquires a different emotional register. Bodies appear suspended between ascent and collapse, their instability echoing both the artist’s physical limitations and an enduring fascination with the vulnerability of the human figure.

One recurring presence is Elke Kretzschmar, Baselitz’s wife and lifelong companion. She appears not through conventional portraiture but as fragmented, multi-limbed forms whose repeated limbs suggest movement rather than likeness. Inspired in part by the artist’s designs for The Soldier’s Tale at the Salzburg Festival, these figures possess the animated quality of marionettes.

Elsewhere, the eagle returns, an image woven through Baselitz’s practice since the 1960s. Here it no longer embodies national identity or historical reckoning alone. Across the exhibition, motifs from different decades converge: the Hero, the eagle, self-portraiture and Elke coexist as if gathered for one final conversation.

The paintings are full of energy. Thick layers of paint sit beside areas of bare canvas. Bold brushstrokes contrast with finer lines, while vivid reds, bright yellows, pale blues and touches of gold bring the compositions to life. Up close, every mark feels rapid. From a distance, those same gestures come together to form figures that seem to appear and disappear at the same time.

These paintings were produced while Baselitz worked seated, adapting his practice to declining mobility by painting on canvases laid across the studio floor.

White Cube’s Bermondsey galleries give these large paintings the space they need to be fully experienced. The simple architecture allows the works to speak for themselves, while the layout creates connections between paintings across the exhibition. Although Back Again reflects on memory and the passing of time, it honours Baselitz’s oeuvre.

The exhibition shows Baselitz returning to the ideas that have shaped his career, finding new ways to explore familiar subjects through painting.

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Images: views of the exhibition and Dreibeiniger Akt, 1977, Linocut from one plate, © Georg Baselitz. Photo © Ulrich Ghezzi