Hans Kern was born in 1938. His artist’s name was taken from the place name of his birth town: Deutschbaselitz. From 1956 to 1957 he studied at the Academy of Art in East Berlin, and then, from 1958 to 1964, after moving to West Berlin at the end of 1957, he continued his studies with Hann Trier at the West Berlin Academy of Fine Arts. He discovered the works of Lautréamont, Artaud, the expressionist-abstract painting. In 1961 he writes his first manifesto "Pandemonium 1", in the following year "Pandemonium 2", which expresses his will to break with abstract aesthetics. His first exhibition, which took place in 1963 at the gallery "Werner und Katz" in Berlin, caused public annoyance, as two of his canvases were labelled obscene. In 1966, on the occasion of an exhibition in Berlin, he published a manifesto entitled "The Great Friends". Gradually he diversified his work. Baselitz painted without neglecting drawing, prints and sculpture. In 1977 he was appointed to a chair at the Art Academy in Karlsruhe, and then from 1983 to 1988 he was a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts (Department of Applied Arts) in Berlin. Baselitz belongs to the generation of German painters who have made their own the German heritage disfigured by the Nazi regime. In their search for national identity, even going back to their deepest Germanic roots, these painters created an emotional pictorial language called "Neo-Expressionism". Baselitz’ works in a context influenced by the American and Parisian schools of abstraction. Probably at first he painted very provocatively for reasons of self-affirmation. Baselitz' painting style is characterized by a rapid, choppy development. His first, rather informal period, with a heavy, thickly applied colour flow, is quickly abandoned.

Around 1965 the first so-called "hero compositions", people who are never able to communicate with their environment, appear. In 1967 the figures in the paintings are dismembered. In 1969 Baselitz turns to figurative compositions, which are represented in reverse: His entire personal painting repertoire appears with the head or roof down (people, animals, houses); in doing so, the artist emphasizes that he thereby attains the freedom to deal with the pictorial problem. Baselitz is one of the greatest graphic artists of the twentieth century.