Georg Baselitz, an acclaimed German artist prominent in the neo-Expressionist movement who had a penchant for provocation and was known for painting images upside down, has died. He was 88.
The Thaddaeus Ropac Gallery, which represented Baselitz, said the artist died on Thursday, citing his family. It said he died “peacefully,” but did not give a cause of death.
Born Hans-Georg Kern, Baselitz took his artistic name from the village of Deutschbaselitz in the eastern Saxony region, where he was born on Jan. 23, 1938, in Nazi-ruled Germany before the outbreak of World War II. After growing up in the ruins of the war, he left the then-East Germany in 1957 at a time of rising political pressure, and emigrated to the West.
“I was born into a destroyed order, into a destroyed landscape, into a destroyed people, into a destroyed society,” he told German news agency dpa before his 85th birthday.
The gallery called him “a titan of contemporary painting, sculpture, drawing and printmaking" and “one of the most important artists of our time," who influenced fellow artists and the international art world.
His first exhibition in 1963 reportedly caused a stir, with a vice squad identifying pornography in at least two of his paintings, and confiscating them.
He was often described as an “artist of rage,” and had a motto of "contradiction," according to dpa.
His works hang in some of the world's top galleries and have fetched millions at auction. In 2017, German police announced they had recovered 15 stolen paintings and drawings by Baselitz worth around 2.5 million euros ($2.9 million).
Baselitz recalled that some of his earliest recognition came in the 1960s through his series of golden-colored “Hero” paintings, based on fictional characters from Russian civil war novels. The works depicted broken figures staggering toward the viewer in ragged uniforms — in distorted sizes, giant hands and small heads. His battle-weary hero, “Der Hirte (The Shepherd)” from 1966 won international acclaim.
In 1969, Baselitz created “Der Wald auf dem Kopf,” (The Forest on its Head), his first “inverted” painting — featuring trees upside down, a theme that would become one of his trademarks.
“Georg Baselitz did not just turn his paintings upside down; he also turned our thinking routines upside down,” German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said. “Having experienced the destruction and suffering of the Second World War as a child, the collapse of all order forced him to question everything around him.”
Baselitz mused about his long career in a recent video, commenting that “typical painting has never appealed to me.”
“I actually wanted to be more of a black-and-white painter, and above all, I didn’t want to work spatially, perspectively, with shadows and light and such things that arise with the imitation of nature," he said while seated in a wheelchair in a paint-smudged jacket.
“I must say that throughout my life, I was not aware that I was a painter of color, even though I am constantly told that I have such wonderful colors,” Baselitz said.
Baselitz said he sought to “construct my connection to the world, to myself and to my wife,” using the most “simple and ordinary" means possible. He spoke in a video from the Giorgio Cini Foundation in Venice, which is hosting an exhibition of Baselitz's “Golden Heroes” works from May 6 to Sept. 27.
A “Naked Masters” exhibit at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna in 2023 spanned his half-century career and dealt with controversial themes of nudity — notably of the painter and his wife, Elke — displayed alongside oil paintings by old masters also evoking nudity.
He is survived by his wife and sons, Daniel Blau and Anton Kern, the gallery said.
FILE - German artist Georg Baselitz talks with journalists during the press preview of the exhibition 'Georg Baselitz' in the Kunstsammlungen in Chemnitz, Germany, on April 16, 2018. (AP Photo/Jens Meyer, File)
PARIS (AP) — Activists worldwide held May Day rallies and street protests Friday, calling for peace, higher wages and better working conditions as many workers grapple with rising energy costs and shrinking purchasing power tied to the Iran war.
May 1 is a public holiday in many countries to mark International Workers’ Day, or Labor Day, when workers’ unions traditionally rally around wages, pensions, inequality and broader political issues. Demonstrations were held from Seoul, Sydney and Jakarta to many European capitals and cities across the United States.
“Working people refuse to pay the price for Donald Trump’s war in the Middle East,” the European Trade Union Confederation, which represents 93 trade union organizations in 41 European countries, said. “Today’s rallies show working people will not stand by and see their jobs and living standards destroyed.”
In the U.S., activists opposing President Donald Trump’s policies are planning marches and boycotts.
Here’s what to know about May Day:
Rising living costs linked to the conflict in the Middle East emerged as a key theme in Friday's rallies.
In the Philippine capital, Manila, large crowds demanded higher wages and lower taxes as protesters denounced the U.S. role in the Iran war. Protesters clashed with police blocking the way near the U.S. Embassy.
In Indonesia, President Prabowo Subianto joined a May Day rally in Jakarta, greeting tens of thousands of people. Workers called for stronger government protection from rising prices and difficulties in finding raw materials for key industries.
In Pakistan, May Day is a public holiday marked by rallies, but many daily wage earners cannot afford to take time off.
“How will I bring vegetables and other necessities home if I don’t work?” said Mohammad Maskeen, a 55-year-old construction worker near Islamabad.
Rising oil prices have fueled inflation, which the government estimates at about 16%, in a country heavily reliant on financial support from the International Monetary Fund and allied nations.
On a main avenue in Casablanca, Morocco’s largest city, taxi drivers honked their horns and bus drivers parked their vehicles to protest rising fuel costs. “All my expenses have gone up, but my wages haven’t budged,” Akherraz Lhachimi of the Moroccan Labor Union said.
Turkish authorities in Istanbul detained hundreds of demonstrators for attempting to march in areas declared off-limits on security grounds, most notably central Taksim Square, the epicenter of 2013 protests. May Day rallies in Turkey are frequently marred by clashes with authorities.
In France, unions called for demonstrations in Paris and elsewhere under the slogan “bread, peace and freedom,” linking workers’ daily concerns to conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East.
In Italy, the government approved nearly 1 billion euros ($1.17 billion) in job incentives this week, aiming to promote stable employment and curb labor abuses ahead of May Day. The measures extend tax breaks to encourage hiring young people and disadvantaged women, and seek to address exploitation tied to platform-based work. Opposition parties dismissed the package as “pure propaganda.”
In Portugal, proposed labor law changes by the center-right government sparked a general strike and street protests last year. There is still no deal after nine months of negotiations with unions and employers. Unions say the proposals would weaken workers’ rights, including by expanding overtime limits and reducing some benefits.
International Workers’ Day was also widely observed across much of Africa.
Several rallies were staged in South Africa, where the head of the Congress of South African Trade Unions, Zingiswa Losi, said that workers were “suffocating” under the rising costs of food, electricity, transport and healthcare in “a crisis of dignity for the working classes.”
May Day carries special meaning this year in France, after a heated debate about whether employees should be allowed to work on the country’s most protected public holiday — the only day when most employees have a mandatory paid day off.
Almost all businesses, shops and malls are closed, and only essential sectors such as hospitals, transport and hotels are exempt.
A recent parliamentary proposal to expand work on the day prompted major outcry from unions and left-leaning politicians.
“Don’t touch May Day,” unions said in a joint statement.
Faced with the controversy, the government this week introduced a bill meant to expand May Day work to people staffing bakeries and florists. It is customary in France to give lily of the valley flowers on May Day as a symbol of good luck.
Tens of thousands of people joined marches across the country, including in Paris, where brief scuffles with police broke out.
“May 1 is not just any day,” Small and Medium-sized Businesses Minister Serge Papin said. “It symbolizes social gains stemming from a century of building social rules that have led to the labor code we know in France. It is indeed a special day.”
Activists and labor unions are organizing street protests and boycotts across the United States, where May Day is not a federal holiday.
May Day Strong, a coalition of activist groups and labor unions, has called on people to protest under the banner of “workers over billionaires.”
Voicing strong opposition to Trump's policies, organizers listed thousands of May Day actions across the country and are seeking an economic blackout through “no school, no work, no shopping.”
Demands include taxing the rich and putting an end to the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown,
While labor and immigrant rights are historically intertwined, the focus of May Day rallies in the U.S. shifted to immigration in 2006. That’s when roughly 1 million people, including nearly half a million in Chicago alone, took to the streets to protest federal legislation that would’ve made living in the U.S. without legal permission a felony.
May Day, or International Workers’ Day, traces back more than a century to a pivotal period in U.S. labor history.
In the 1880s, unions pushed for an eight-hour workday through strikes and demonstrations. In May 1886, a Chicago rally turned deadly when a bomb exploded and police responded with gunfire. Several labor activists — most of them immigrants — were convicted of conspiracy and other charges; four were executed.
Unions later designated May 1 to honor workers. A monument in Chicago’s Haymarket Square commemorates them with the inscription: “Dedicated to all workers of the world.”
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Associated Press journalists Barry Hatton in Lisbon, Portugal, Giada Zampano in Rome, Munir Ahmed in Islamabad, Niniek Karmini in Jakarta, Indonesia, Jim Gomez in Manila, Philippines, Cinar Kiper in Istanbul, Turkey and Akram Oubachir in Casablanca, Morocco contributed to this report.
Protesters march during the May Day demonstration in Paris, Friday, May 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Aurelien Morissard)
An union member is detained by a Turkish police officer as people try to march towards Taksim square in Istanbul, Turkey, Friday, May 1, 2026, during Labor Day celebrations. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)
Members of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions stage a rally on May Day in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, May 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
Members of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions stage a rally on May Day in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, May 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
Union members scuffle with Turkish police officers as they try to march towards Taksim square in Istanbul, Turkey, Friday, May 1, 2026, during Labor Day celebrations. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)
Union members carefully step through rain-formed puddles to participate in a May Day rally in the rain Friday, May 1, 2026, in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)
People march to mark International Workers' Day, also known as May Day, in Sydney, Friday, May 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Rick Rycroft)
People march to mark International Workers' Day, also known as May Day, in Sydney, Friday, May 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Rick Rycroft)
FILE - Activist and workers raise their clenched fists during a May Day rally in Manila, Philippines, May 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila, File)
Laborers protest during a May Day demonstration in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Thursday, April 30, 2026. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)
Laborers hold flares during a May Day demonstration in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Thursday, April 30, 2026. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)
Members of trade unions take part in a rally a day ahead of the International Labor Day, in Karachi, Pakistan, Thursday, April 30, 2026. The banner in center reading as 'red salute to the martyrs of Chicago and the struggle will continue until economic exploitation is ended' (AP Photo/Ali Raza)
Members of trade unions take part in a rally a day ahead of the International Labor Day, in Karachi, Pakistan, Thursday, April 30, 2026. (AP Photo/Ali Raza)
