Anselm Kiefer

Anselm Kiefer (born 8 March 1945) is a German painter and sculptor.

In 1951, his family moved to Ottersdorf, and he attended public school in Rastatt, graduating high school in 1965.

He studied at the University of Freiburg, studying pre-law and Romance languages.

However, after three semesters he switched to art, studying at art academies in Freiburg and Karlsruhe.

In Karlsruhe, he studied under Peter Dreher, a realist and figurative painter.

He studied with Peter Dreher and Horst Antes at the end of the 1960s.

His works incorporate materials such as straw, ash, clay, lead, and shellac.

The poems of Paul Celan have played a role in developing Kiefer's themes of German history and the horrors of the Holocaust, as have the spiritual concepts of Kabbalah.

In his entire body of work, Kiefer argues with the past and addresses taboo and controversial issues from recent history.

Themes from Nazi rule are particularly reflected in his work; for instance, the painting Margarethe (oil and straw on canvas) was inspired by Celan's well-known poem "Todesfuge" ("Death Fugue").

His works are characterised by an unflinching willingness to confront his culture's dark past, and unrealised potential, in works that are often done on a large, confrontational scale well suited to the subjects.

It is also characteristic of his work to find signatures and names of people of historical importance, legendary figures or historical places.

All of these are encoded sigils through which Kiefer seeks to process the past; this has resulted in his work being linked with the movements New Symbolism and Neo–Expressionism.

He received an art degree in 1969.

In 1971 Kiefer moved to Hornbach (Walldürn) and established a studio.

Kiefer has lived and worked in France since 1992.

He remained in the Neckar-Odenwald-Kreis until 1992; his output during this first creative time is known as The German Years.

In 1992 he relocated to France.

Kiefer left his first wife and children in Germany on his move to Barjac in 1992.

Since 2008, he has lived and worked primarily in Paris.

From 2008 he lived in Paris, in a large house in the Marais district, with his second wife, the Austrian photographer Renate Graf, and their two children.

Kiefer and Graf divorced in 2014.

In 2017, Kiefer was ranked one of the richest 1,001 individuals and families in Germany by the monthly business publication Manager Magazin.

Kiefer is the subject of the 3D documentary film Anselm (2023), directed by Wim Wenders.

Generally, Kiefer attributes traditional mythology, books, and libraries as his main subjects and sources of inspiration.

In his middle years, his inspiration came from literary figures, namely Paul Celan and Ingeborg Bachmann.

His later works incorporate themes from Judeo-Christian, ancient Egyptian, and Oriental cultures, which he combines with other motifs.

Cosmogony is also a large focus in his works.

In all, Kiefer searches for the meaning of existence and "representation of the incomprehensible and the non-representational."

Kiefer values a "spiritual connection" with the materials he works with, "extracting the spirit that already lives within [them]."

In doing so, he transforms his materials with acid baths and physical blows with sticks and axes, among other processes.

He often chooses materials for their alchemical properties—lead in particular.

Kiefer's initial attraction to lead arose when he had to repair aging pipes in the first house he owned.

Eventually, he came to admire its physical and sensory qualities and began to discover more about its connection to alchemy.

Physically, Kiefer specifically likes how the metal looks during the heating and melting process when he sees many colors, especially gold, which he associates to the symbolic gold sought by alchemists.

Kiefer's use of straw in his work represents energy.

He claims this is due to straw's physical qualities, including the color gold and its release of energy and heat when burned.

In 2018, he was awarded Austrian citizenship.

The son of a German art teacher, Kiefer was born in Donaueschingen a few months before the end of World War II.

His city having been heavily bombed, Kiefer grew up surrounded by the devastation of the war.