Anselm Kiefer

Early Works

Buch | Softcover

224 Seiten

2025
Ashmolean Museum (Verlag)
978-1-910807-64-4 (ISBN)

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Accompanies a major exhibition in the Ashmolean Museum on the early work of acclaimed German artist Anselm Kiefer. It focuses on his paintings, drawings, photographs and artist books created between 1969 and 1982, in the private collections of the Hall Art Foundation.

This book accompanies a major exhibition in the Ashmolean Museum on the early work of internationally acclaimed German artist Anselm Kiefer. It focuses on his paintings, drawings, photographs and artist books created between 1969 and 1982, in the private collections of the Hall Art Foundation. Anselm Kiefer: Early Works is the first institutional show and publication in the UK dedicated to Kiefer’s early practice. The book introduces themes, subjects and styles that have become signature to Kiefer’s work, while providing a more intimate and complementary context for his large-scale installations that he is best known for today. The early works are accompanied by three recent paintings from the artist’s own collections and White Cube, chosen by the artist himself.

Art historians, artists, curators and experts of Kiefer’s art from Germany, Austria, Belgium, Britain and the US have contributed 46 original texts on individual works, organised in a chronological structure. An illustrated chronology at the end of the book compiled by Stephanie Biron from the Hall Art Foundation provides an overview of the artist’s early practice and life, to contextualise the works.

The book begins with Kiefer’s iconic Occupations and Heroische Sinnbilder series, created in 1969 and 1970, which Kiefer views as his first serious works. Kiefer was among the first generation of German post-war artists to directly confront the country’s troubled past and identity. Full of complex references to German socio-political history but also to culture, literature and his personal life, Kiefer’s early works carry a unique iconography, linking classic ideas of great art with a distinctive understanding of concrete artistic materiality. The landscapes in his watercolours are historically charged; hand-written words on paintings are closely linked with poetry well known to most German viewers; motifs and symbols point at Nazi ideologies and a collective feeling of guilt.

Lena Fritsch is the Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Ashmolean, responsible for exhibitions, displays and acquisitions of international art. She teaches at the University of Oxford, V&A and SOAS, London. Previously, she was a curator at Tate Modern, London and Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin. She holds a PhD in art history from Bonn University and also studied at Keio University, Tokyo. Richard Calvocoressi is an art historian and curator. He was an Assistant Keeper at the Tate Gallery, Director of the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, and Director of the Henry Moore Foundation. His publications include Anselm Kiefer: Morgenthau Plan (2013), Bacon Moore: Flesh and Bone (2013, with Martin Harrison), and Georg Baselitz (2021). Harriet Häußler holds a PhD in art history from the Ruhr-Universität in Bochum, Germany. Since 2009, she has been teaching and publishing widely about the art market and art of the 20th and 21st centuries. She has authored numerous books and articles, including her thesis Anselm Kiefer: Die Himmelspaläste (2004). Antonia Hoerschelmann studied art history, archaeology and philosophy at the University of Vienna. Since 1992, she has been the Curator of Modern and Contemporary art at the Albertina Museum in Vienna. In 2016, she curated the first major exhibition dedicated to Anselm Kiefer’s woodblock prints, at Albertina. Liz Rideal is an artist and writer living in London. Professor at the Slade School of Fine Art, her publications include books on self-portraiture, portraiture and a best-seller, How to Read Paintings (2014). Rideal has exhibited widely in museums and galleries in Europe and America with three solo shows in New York. Lisa Saltzman is a professor of History of Art and the inaugural Emily Rauh Pulitzer ’55 Chair in Modern and Contemporary Art at Bryn Mawr College. She is a specialist in post-war and contemporary art. Educated at Princeton and Harvard, she has been awarded fellowships from the Radcliffe Institute of Advanced Study, Clark Art Institute and Guggenheim Foundation. Sabine Schütz, PhD is an art historian and art critic (AICA), focusing on modern and contemporary art. She has done curatorial work at various German museums and taught art theory and art history at the University of Cologne. An van Camp is the Christopher Brown Curator of Northern European Art at the Ashmolean. Most recently, she curated Bruegel to Rubens: Great Flemish Drawings (Oxford, 2024) and co-curated Young Rembrandt (Leiden/Oxford, 2019–20). She is a member of the Editorial Board of Print Quarterly and Master Drawings. Christian Weikop is Professor of Modern and Contemporary German Art at the University of Edinburgh. He has published extensively on 20th-century German art, including publications on Anselm Kiefer for international art institutions. He works closely with the Atelier Anselm Kiefer in Paris.

DIRECTOR’S FOREWORD 9
Alexander Sturgis
INTRODUCTION 10
Lena Fritsch
IN FOCUS
1
FÜR JEAN GENET, 1969 16
Christian Weikop
2
BESETZUNG (OCCUPATION), 1969–2016 26
Christian Weikop
3
HEROISCHE SINNBILDER, 1970 30
Christian Weikop
4
ICH – DU, 1971 34
Lena Fritsch
5
LANDSCHAFT BEI BUCHEN, 1971 38
Lena Fritsch
6
WALD, 1973/74 40
Lena Fritsch
7
DIE ETSCH, MID-1970S 44
Lena Fritsch
8
V ON OSCAR WILDE FÜR JULIA, 1973 47
Liz Rideal
9
T HE DREAM KING, 1974 51
Liz Rideal
10
LANDSCHAFT MIT KOPF, 1973 55
Sabine Schütz
11
UNTITLED (U-BOAT), 1973 58
Lena Fritsch
12
SOL INVICTUS HELIOGABAL, 1974 61
Lena Fritsch
13/14
NASCITA DI PITTURA (THE BIRTH OF PAINTING ) / 64
UNTITLED, 1974
Lena Fritsch
15
HOW TO PAINT NUDES, 1974 70
Lena Fritsch
16
STILL LIFE IS EXCITING, 1974 72
Lena Fritsch
17
DAS DEUTSCHE VOLKSGESICHT. 76
KOHLE FÜR 2000 JAHRE, 1974
Sabine Schütz
18
UNTITLED, 1974 94
Lena Fritsch
19
AUSBRENNEN DES LANDKREISES BUCHEN, 95
1974
Lena Fritsch
20
HELIOGABAL, 1974-75 110
Lena Fritsch
21/22
STEFAN!, 1975 / STEFAN II, 1975 113
23
DIE KUNST GEHT KNAPP NICHT UNTER, 1975 118
Lena Fritsch
24
BRÜNHILDES TOD, 1976 121
Liz Rideal
25
UNTERNEHMEN TRAPPENFANG, 1976 124
Lisa Saltzman
26
W EGE DER WELTWEISHEIT, 1977 128
Antonia Hoerschelmann
27
W EGE DER WELTWEISHEIT: GOTTFRIED KELLER, 1977 132
An Van Camp
28
W EGE DER WELTWEISHEIT: GOTTFRIED KELLER, 1977 145
An van Camp
29
ENGEL MIT PALETTE, 1977-78 152
Lisa Saltzman
30
VON SCHLIEFFEN, 1977 156
Lena Fritsch
31
FÜR JULIA, 1977-78 158
Lena Fritsch
32
PALETTE MIT FLÜGELN, 1978 162
Harriet Häußler
33
BRÜNHILDE GRANE, 1978 165
Lena Fritsch
34
YGGDRASIL, 1978 168
Harriet Häußler
35
RITT AN DIE WEICHSEL, 1980-81 172
Lena Fritsch
36
NOCH IST POLEN NICHT VERLOREN, 1981 174
Lena Fritsch
37
BRÜNHILDE, 1981 178
Lena Fritsch
38
URD, WERDANDI, SKULD (DIE NORNEN), 1981 181
Lena Fritsch
39
MARGARETHE-SULAMIT, 1981 184
Lena Fritsch
40
ET LA TERRE TREMBLE ENCORE, 1981 188
Lena Fritsch
41
DER RHEIN, 1982 191
Antonia Hoerschelmann
42
INNENRAUM, 1982 195
Richard Calvocoressi
43/44
DIE BLÄTTER FALLEN / UND IN DEN NÄCHTEN 198
FÄLLT DIE SCHWERE ERDE, 2017–23
Lena Fritsch
45
W ER JETZT KEIN HAUS HAT, 2023 199
Lena Fritsch
CONTRIBUTORS 210
CHRONOLOGY 212
Stephanie Biron

Erscheinungsdatum	07.02.2025
Zusatzinfo	4 Illustrations, black and white; 150 Illustrations, color
Verlagsort	Oxford
Sprache	englisch
Maße	220 x 280 mm
Gewicht	1118 g
Themenwelt	Kunst / Musik / Theater ► Kunstgeschichte / Kunststile
ISBN-10	1-910807-64-8 / 1910807648
ISBN-13	978-1-910807-64-4 / 9781910807644
Zustand	Neuware