Anselm Kiefer: Early Works

Challenging and shocking, the German artist fearlessly confronts his country’s Nazi past with grand political statements

Anselm Kiefer. Wege der Weltweisheit - die Hermannsschlacht (Ways of Worldly Wisdom - The Battle of Hermann), 1977 (detail). Woodcuts on paper with acrylic and shellac mounted on synthetic fabric, 305 x 321 cm. Hall Collection. Courtesy of the Hall Art Foundation. © Anselm Kiefer. Photo: Roman März.

Ashmolean Museum, Oxford
14 February – 15 June 2025

by BETH WILLIAMSON

Prepare to be surprised by this stunning exhibition of early works by the German artist Anselm Kiefer (b1945) on show at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford and sensitively put together by the curator Lena Fritsch. Kiefer is one of Germany’s most important living artists and we have come to expect monumental paintings and installation work from him. With epic narratives of life, death and the cosmos, he deals with the complexities of history and particularly with Germany’s recent history. Yes, in this exhibition we are whisked back to Kiefer’s beginnings and 45 early artworks made between 1969 and 1982. Ranging across paintings, watercolours, artist books, photos and woodcuts, these objects have rarely been seen in the UK. Layered with meaning, and often poignant and personal, they reveal an aspect of the artist not glimpsed before. They come from the Hall Collection and are accompanied by three new paintings selected by Kiefer from his own collection. Why? Because despite the uniqueness of these early works, their engagement with literature, history and myth, as well as broader themes of culture, civilisation and spirituality, mean there is continuity, too, something these new works expose.

Anselm Kiefer. Für Jean Genet (For Jean Genet), 1969. Bound watercolour on paper, graphite, original photographs, hair and canvas strips on cardboard (24 pages), 67 x 51 x 4 cm. Hall Collection. Courtesy of the Hall Art Foundation. © Anselm Kiefer.

The show is challenging and sometimes shocking, but Fritsch does not shy away from those difficult subjects. Instead, like Kiefer, she confronts Germany’s past head on. Dealing with questions of national identity in the wake of the Third Reich, the second world war and the unspeakable horrors of the Holocaust, it is a powerful exhibition that feels all the more urgent and relevant in the current global political climate. Kiefer wrote: “If we don’t remember what we have done, we will do the same thing again.” In the Occupations series (1969-70), he makes the “Sieg Heil” salute in protest at past crimes and as a challenge to be vigilant about such things happening once again. The life-sized 1970 painting Heroische Sinnbilder (Selbstporträt) (Heroic Symbols (Self-Portrait)), shows Kiefer making a Sieg Heil salute while wearing his father’s Wehrmacht overcoat. Sporting a moustache that makes him look rather like Hitler, Kiefer offsets this with unkept hair that appears to resemble that of Albert Einstein.

Anselm Kiefer. Wald (Forest), 1973–74. Watercolour on paper, 17 x 24 cm. Hall Collection. Courtesy of the Hall Art Foundation. © Anselm Kiefer. Photo: Adam Reich

Looking beyond recent German history to German Romanticism and expressionism, ancient Nordic mythology and wider European science, religion, philosophy, spirituality, art and culture, the limits of these early works know no bounds. From grand political statements to intimate personal messages, Kiefer’s practice here shows that complex references to German sociopolitical history can exist alongside tender messages to his wife, Julia, and son, Daniel. In Ich-Du (I-You) (1971), landscapes echo the German Romanticism of artists such as Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840) and Philipp Otto Runge (1777-1810) while portraying extreme opposites (fire and ice, water and sky, young and old, light and dark) and gentle dedications to his wife and to his son before he was even born in words such as the achingly tender “Daniel kommt”.

Anselm Kiefer. Die Etsch (The Adige), early-1970s. Watercolour, gouache and ink on paper, 56 x 41 cm. Hall Collection. Courtesy of the Hall Art Foundation. © Anselm Kiefer. Photo: Mark-Woods.com

Watercolours such as Die Etsch (The Adige) (mid-1970s) or Kranke Kunst (Sick Art) (1974) are perhaps the biggest surprise in this show. In each instance, soft watery hues blur into one another while much bolder areas of black interject with more sinister gestures. The Adige valley may be associated with beautiful natural scenery, but its German name, “die Etsch”, points to recent German history and the first verse of the national anthem that was sung between 1922 and 1945. The anthem, written in 1841 by August Heinrich Hoffmann von Fallersleben, had a chequered history and after the fall of Nazi Germany, only the third verse was used as the national anthem, and since 1990 represents a reunified Germany.

Anselm Kiefer. Wege der Weltweisheit - die Hermannsschlacht (Ways of Worldly Wisdom - The Battle of Hermann), 1977. Woodcuts on paper with acrylic and shellac mounted on synthetic fabric, 305 x 321 cm. Hall Collection. Courtesy of the Hall Art Foundation. © Anselm Kiefer. Photo: Roman März.

Keifer started making woodcuts in 1973-74. Works such as the powerful series Wege der Weltweisheit: Gottfried Keller (Ways of Worldly Wisdom: Gottfried Keller) (1977) link to his personal history in the sense that his grandfather was a carpenter who passed his tools to Kiefer. His connection to wood and forest was inherent in the location of his childhood home too. They connect also to a broader history of the medium in German art, with Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528) being the obvious point of reference. Meanwhile, composite works such as the assemblage Landschaft Mit Kopf (Landscape with Head) (1973) demonstrate a more complex engagement with materials and indeed subject, as oil, cardboard and charcoal come together on burlap. It is not unusual for him to add acrylic, oil or shellac to create such collage/assemblage compositions. Here, a portrait of Kiefer’s grandmother is surrounded on the left by a large frame-like structure covered in illusory woodgrain while the blackness of the night floods the seascape to the right of the image. Two red lines extend from his grandmother’s eyes to the seascape, referencing ancient theories of vision. Meanwhile, the irregular framing of the image perhaps gestures back to the Russian constructivists of the 1920s.

Anselm Kiefer. Innenraum (Interior), 1982. Watercolour and graphite on paper, 77.5 x 68.5 cm. Hall Collection. Courtesy of the Hall Art Foundation. © Anselm Kiefer. Photo: Steven Brookes Studio.

The painter’s palette is another recurring motif in Keifer’s paintings, referencing his own art-making in postwar Germany and art-making more broadly. In the haunting image Innenraum (Interior) (1982), we are presented with a deserted building based on photographs of architectural projects under the Nazi regime. The watercolour places a shadowy palette at the centre of the image surrounded by the classicist culture of the Nazis. In this way, the painter becomes a martyr of sorts. There is, of course, much more to say about Kiefer’s engagement with Nazi-era architecture, with motifs and symbols, Norse mythology, Brünhilde and American art instruction manuals, all of which have a place in this exhibition. It is an exhibition that ends on a hopeful note with Kiefer’s Urd, Werdandi, Skuld [Die Nornen] (The Norns) (1981). The three Norns are the goddesses responsible for shaping fate in Norse mythology. They represent the past, present and future and are shown as fallen branches of the world tree, Yggdrasil, burning, smoking and turning to ashes. The circle of life is therefore visualised in its most elemental fashion. In this painting Kiefer seems to say that, despite everything that has gone before, there is hope, if only we remember.

Anselm Kiefer at work in his studio. Photo courtesy Barbara Klemm.