About Artist

Anselm Kiefer was born in 1945 in Donaueschingen, Germany. His artistic practice incorporates diverse media, including painting, sculpture, photography, woodcut, artist’s books, installations and architecture.

Kiefer studied law and romance languages before pursuing studies in fine art at academies in Freiburg and Karlsruhe. As a young artist, he entered into contact with Joseph Beuys and participated in his action Save the Woods (1971).

Early works confronted the history of the Third Reich and engaged with Germany’s post-war identity as a means of breaking the silence over the recent past. Through parodying the Nazi salute or visually citing and deconstructing National Socialist architecture and Germanic heroic legends, Kiefer explored his identity and culture.

From 1971 until his move to France in 1992, Kiefer worked in the Odenwald, Germany.
Throughout this time, he started incorporating into his work materials and techniques which are now emblematic–lead, straw, plants, textiles and woodcuts–along with themes such as Wagner’s Ring Cycle, the poetry of Paul Celan and Ingeborg Bachmann, as well as Biblical connotations and Jewish mysticism.

The mid-1990s marks a shift in his work; extensive travels throughout India, Asia, America and Northern Africa inspired interest in the exchange of thought between the Eastern and Western worlds. Structures resembling ancient Mesopotamian architecture enter the work. Glimmers of Southern France’s landscapes appear, evidenced by depictions of constellations or the inclusion of plants and sunflower seeds.

An avid reader, Kiefer’s works are layered with literary and poetic references. These associations are not necessarily fixed nor literal, but rather overlap into an interwoven fabric of signification. The interest in books being both text and object is evident in his work. Since the beginning of his practice, artist’s books have constituted a significant part of his oeuvre.

Kiefer has had solo exhibitions at major museums and historical buildings including Palazzo Ducale in Venice. In Japan, a large-scale retrospective of his work was held at the National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto in 1993 (traveling to the Sezon Museum of Art [Tokyo] and the Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art); in 1999 he was awarded the Praemium Imperiale by His Imperial Highness Prince Takamatsu. In 2023, Wim Wenders' documentary film Anselm was released to much acclaim.