What happened to Edvard Munch’s feet?

In this exhibition you will see several depictions of feet in the paintings of Georg Baselitz. In Georg Baselitz’s mysterious painting Ekely (2005), a pair of feet in black shoes hovers over a forest landscape. For a long time, Baselitz has been fascinated by a photograph of Edvard Munch in his home at Ekely which was taken on his 80th birthday in 1943. The old Munch sits in a chair surrounded by his works, with his hands on his knees. What particularly captured Baselitz’s attention was the missing feet at the bottom of the picture. 

‘I’d always been annoyed by those cut-off feet,’ he said, ‘so I decided I'm going to sit myself on a chair, place my hands exactly like that and have my photograph taken, shoes and all.’ 
 
In the background is a tree-lined path in Saxony where he used to play as a child. Thus, in this painting Baselitz brings together a nostalgic vision of his vanished past with his sense of himself as an artist who has carrying on Munch’s legacy. He places his feet - quite literally - in Munch’s shoes.