Created in 1965 during his residence at Villa Romana in Florence, Untitled (Schweinekopf), along with Untitled (Fahne)(Lot 16), is an exquisite examples of Baselitz's early devotion to drawings, and the result of the artist’s deep reflection upon and response to Mannerism, and more generally, Italian Art. Whimsical in their lines and captivating in their undecipherable figures, these two drawings are among the first attempts by Georg Baselitz “at finding his own voice” (D. Waldman, Georg Baselitz, exh. cat., The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, 1995, p. 18) and hold a special place within the artist’s oeuvre of works on paper for showing the embryonal phases of Baselitz’s unique figurative style.
In Untitled (Schweinekopf), the line of black ink reigns supreme, often performing whimsical contortions and creating mysterious , is an figures, others outlining sinuous and captivating shapes. It takes the onlooker into an emotionally unstable universe on paper loaded with visible influences from Mannerist art. Baselitz’s early interest in Mannerism with its “distorted forms”, “the mood profoundly disturbing” and its “addiction to excess” (Ibid., pp.27-29),—as himself declared in the early manifesto Pandamonium in 1962—grew through the closeness to the Masters of Mannerism like Agnolo Bronzino, Jacopo Montoro, and Rosso Fiorentino, whose work he could admire in person at the Uffizi Gallery and Galleria dell’ Accademia in Florence. Untitled (Schweinekopf) depicts a pig, a subject rooted in the legacy of the 16th-century fascination for animals and fantastic creatures. Perhaps influenced by some engravings by Giuseppe Maria Mitelli that he found in Florentine flea markets, Baselitz combined in this drawing the mannerist interest in the “bizarre” and the dark parody of everyday life.
Visual clues of Baselitz’s earlier artistic influences, like Jackson Pollock, and Philip Guston transpire through the immediacy of the strokes, and the uncanny figuration of the works. Untitled (Schweinekopf) is then an important witnesses of Baselitz’s time in Italy, as well as of the centrality that the Florentine art residency had on Baselitz’s artistic journey. Through drawings, the artist succeeded to express his young, curious, artistic vitality, the one at the very base of his signature figurative style founded on “collective history and personal memory” (Ibid., pp.27-29).