Overview

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.

Full Product Details

Author:   Lena Fritsch
Publisher:   Ashmolean Museum
Imprint:   Ashmolean Museum
Dimensions:   Width: 22.00cm , Height: 2.00cm , Length: 28.00cm
Weight:   1.118kg
ISBN:  

9781910807644

ISBN 10:   1910807648
Pages:   224
Publication Date:   03 February 2025
Audience:   General/trade ,  General
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print  
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Table of Contents

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

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Author Information

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.

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