Kiefer-Van Gogh

Contents

Published on the occasion of the exhibition

Kiefer / Van Gogh Royal Academy of Arts, London 28 June – 26 October 2025 Exhibition developed in close collaboration with the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam

Supported by

Director of Exhibitions Andrea Tarsia

Exhibition Curators Julien Domercq with Natasha Fyffe First proposed at the RA by Axel Rüger

Exhibition Organisation Joanna Weston with Guy Carr With additional support from

Photographic and Copyright Co-ordination Giulia Ariete

Exhibition Catalogue Simon Morris and Annalisa Burello and other benefactors who wish to remain anonymous

This exhibition has been made possible as a result of the Government Indemnity Scheme. The Royal Academy of Arts would like to thank HM Government for providing indemnity and the Department for Culture, Media & Sport and Arts Council England for arranging the indemnity.

RA Kiefer_Prelims 11 KJ.indd 4

Royal Academy Publications Florence Dassonville, Production and Distribution Co-ordinator Carola Krueger, Production and Distribution Manager Peter Sawbridge, Head of Publishing and Editorial Director Copy-editing and proofreading: Kate Bell Design: Kathrin Jacobsen Colour origination: Tijdsbeeld Publishing and Graphius, Ghent; Gomer Press, Wales Printed in Wales by Gomer Press Text and images by Anselm Kiefer, copyright © 2025 Anselm Kiefer.

Text by Simon Schama, copyright © 2025 Simon Schama. Texts were originally published in Anselm Kiefer: Where Have All the Flowers Gone © Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam; Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, 2025.

This arrangement copyright © 2025 Royal Academy of Arts, London.

Any copy of this book issued by the publisher is sold subject to the condition that it shall not by way of trade or otherwise be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including these words being imposed on a subsequent purchaser.

All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any other information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

Editorial Note

Ambassador’s Foreword

7

Dimensions of all works of art are given in centimetres, height before width (before depth).

Foreword

8

Acknowledgements

11

In the Footsteps of Van Gogh

15

Illustrations Front cover: detail of cat. 19 Back cover: detail of cat. 9 Pages 2–3: detail of cat. 23 Page 6: detail of cat. 20 Page 9: detail of cat. 10 Page 10: detail of cat. 14 Pages 12–13: detail of cat. 5 Pages 54–5: detail of cat. 9 Pages 72–3: detail of cat. 21 Page 112: detail of cat. 1

Anselm Kiefer

Van Gogh and Kiefer: An Affinity of Sunflowers

33

Simon Schama

Royal Academy of Arts Burlington House Piccadilly London W1J 0BD www.royalacademy.org.uk

Catalogue plates

54

Anselm Kiefer: A Chronology

98

Tamara Klopper

EU Authorised Representative EAS Europe, Mustamäe tee 50, 10621 Tallinn, Estonia gpsr.requests@easproject.com British Library Cataloguingin-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978-1-915815-17-0

List of Works Exhibited

110

Endnotes

113

Selected Publications

114

Lenders to the Exhibition

115

Photographic Acknowledgements

115

Index

116

Distributed outside the United States and Canada by ACC Art Books Ltd, Riverside House, Dock Lane, Melton, Woodbridge, IP12 1PE Distributed in the United States and Canada by ARTBOOK | D.A.P., 75 Broad Street, Suite 630, New York, NY 10004

14/05/2025 14:51

RA Kiefer_Prelims 11 KJ.indd 5

14/05/2025 14:51

Contents

Published on the occasion of the exhibition

Kiefer / Van Gogh Royal Academy of Arts, London 28 June – 26 October 2025 Exhibition developed in close collaboration with the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam

Supported by

Director of Exhibitions Andrea Tarsia

Exhibition Curators Julien Domercq with Natasha Fyffe First proposed at the RA by Axel Rüger

Exhibition Organisation Joanna Weston with Guy Carr With additional support from

Photographic and Copyright Co-ordination Giulia Ariete

Exhibition Catalogue Simon Morris and Annalisa Burello and other benefactors who wish to remain anonymous

This exhibition has been made possible as a result of the Government Indemnity Scheme. The Royal Academy of Arts would like to thank HM Government for providing indemnity and the Department for Culture, Media & Sport and Arts Council England for arranging the indemnity.

RA Kiefer_Prelims 11 KJ.indd 4

Royal Academy Publications Florence Dassonville, Production and Distribution Co-ordinator Carola Krueger, Production and Distribution Manager Peter Sawbridge, Head of Publishing and Editorial Director Copy-editing and proofreading: Kate Bell Design: Kathrin Jacobsen Colour origination: Tijdsbeeld Publishing and Graphius, Ghent; Gomer Press, Wales Printed in Wales by Gomer Press Text and images by Anselm Kiefer, copyright © 2025 Anselm Kiefer.

Text by Simon Schama, copyright © 2025 Simon Schama. Texts were originally published in Anselm Kiefer: Where Have All the Flowers Gone © Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam; Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, 2025.

This arrangement copyright © 2025 Royal Academy of Arts, London.

Any copy of this book issued by the publisher is sold subject to the condition that it shall not by way of trade or otherwise be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including these words being imposed on a subsequent purchaser.

All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any other information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

Editorial Note

Ambassador’s Foreword

7

Dimensions of all works of art are given in centimetres, height before width (before depth).

Foreword

8

Acknowledgements

11

In the Footsteps of Van Gogh

15

Illustrations Front cover: detail of cat. 19 Back cover: detail of cat. 9 Pages 2–3: detail of cat. 23 Page 6: detail of cat. 20 Page 9: detail of cat. 10 Page 10: detail of cat. 14 Pages 12–13: detail of cat. 5 Pages 54–5: detail of cat. 9 Pages 72–3: detail of cat. 21 Page 112: detail of cat. 1

Anselm Kiefer

Van Gogh and Kiefer: An Affinity of Sunflowers

33

Simon Schama

Royal Academy of Arts Burlington House Piccadilly London W1J 0BD www.royalacademy.org.uk

Catalogue plates

54

Anselm Kiefer: A Chronology

98

Tamara Klopper

EU Authorised Representative EAS Europe, Mustamäe tee 50, 10621 Tallinn, Estonia gpsr.requests@easproject.com British Library Cataloguingin-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978-1-915815-17-0

List of Works Exhibited

110

Endnotes

113

Selected Publications

114

Lenders to the Exhibition

115

Photographic Acknowledgements

115

Index

116

Distributed outside the United States and Canada by ACC Art Books Ltd, Riverside House, Dock Lane, Melton, Woodbridge, IP12 1PE Distributed in the United States and Canada by ARTBOOK | D.A.P., 75 Broad Street, Suite 630, New York, NY 10004

14/05/2025 14:51

RA Kiefer_Prelims 11 KJ.indd 5

14/05/2025 14:51

8

Foreword Vincent van Gogh was Anselm Kiefer’s first artistic

Edwin Becker, whose generosity of spirit has been

inspiration. In 1963, aged 18, Kiefer followed in Van

invaluable in bringing this project to London. At the

Gogh’s footsteps through the Netherlands, Belgium

Royal Academy, the exhibition was first proposed by

and Paris, ending up in Arles in southern France.

Axel Rüger, formerly Secretary and Chief Executive,

On his travels, termed by Kiefer an ‘initiation journey’,

and has been curated by Julien Domercq, Curator,

he made drawings in the style of the pioneer of Post-

with Natasha Fyffe, Genesis Future Curator. It would

Impressionism, experiencing a profound kinship with

have been impossible without the dedication and

him that endures to this day. This exhibition presents

expertise of Joanna Weston, Exhibitions Manager,

a selection of paintings and drawings by Van Gogh

Guy Carr, Assistant Exhibitions Manager, and Giulia

alongside Kiefer’s early sketches as well as new canvases

Ariete, Rights and Reproductions Manager, and of

that Kiefer painted in 2019 while consciously thinking

the exhibition designers Wayne Daly and Claire Lyon.

about Van Gogh, and other works that testify to this

Sincerest thanks are due to Andrea Tarsia, Director

continuing influence. The aim is not to compare, but

of Exhibitions, Idoya Beitia, Head of Exhibitions, and

instead to invite us to gain new insights into Van Gogh

Adrian Locke, Chief Curator, for their tireless support,

by seeing his work through Kiefer’s eyes, and likewise

as well as to Peter Sawbridge, Head of Publishing

to experience Kiefer’s work through his meditations

and Editorial Director, and the RA Publications team

on an artist who has inspired him throughout his

for creating a catalogue that so perfectly reflects the

nearly sixty-year career.

spirit of this project. Finally, we thank the many other

The exhibition has been organised by the Royal Academy of Arts and developed in close collaboration with

members of Royal Academy staff who have contributed to the exhibition’s development and delivery.

the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam. The Royal Academy

We are extremely grateful to the supporters of this

is indebted to the Van Gogh Museum for its exceptional

project, who have helped us to realise our ambitions. We

loan of paintings and drawings by Van Gogh, and to its

extend our heartfelt thanks to the Rothschild Foundation

other lenders for agreeing to part, for a time, with some

and White Cube. We also owe much gratitude to

of their greatest treasures. It has been a pleasure to work

Gregory Annenberg Weingarten, Founder of GRoW @

closely with Anselm Kiefer, who has contributed with

Annenberg, Simon Morris and Annalisa Burello and other

characteristic enthusiasm and dedication to this project.

benefactors who wish to remain anonymous. Last but not

Particular thanks are owed to Waltraud Forelli and Lucas

least, we thank H. E. Miguel Berger, Ambassador of the

Pottier at Atelier Anselm Kiefer, and to Jay Jopling and

Federal Republic of Germany to the United Kingdom,

Susannah Hyman at White Cube.

for his unwavering support.

The exhibition in London is based on the Van Gogh Museum’s section of the two-venue exhibition ‘Anselm Kiefer: Sag mir wo die Blumen sind’, held

Rebecca Salter cbe pra

jointly at the Van Gogh Museum and the Stedelijk

President, Royal Academy of Arts

Museum, marking an historic collaboration between

RA Kiefer_Prelims 11 KJ.indd 8

these two institutions. At the Van Gogh Museum,

Emilie E. S. Gordenker

the exhibition was curated by Emilie Gordenker and

Director, Van Gogh Museum

14/05/2025 14:51

RA Kiefer_Prelims 11 KJ.indd 9

14/05/2025 14:51

8

Foreword Vincent van Gogh was Anselm Kiefer’s first artistic

Edwin Becker, whose generosity of spirit has been

inspiration. In 1963, aged 18, Kiefer followed in Van

invaluable in bringing this project to London. At the

Gogh’s footsteps through the Netherlands, Belgium

Royal Academy, the exhibition was first proposed by

and Paris, ending up in Arles in southern France.

Axel Rüger, formerly Secretary and Chief Executive,

On his travels, termed by Kiefer an ‘initiation journey’,

and has been curated by Julien Domercq, Curator,

he made drawings in the style of the pioneer of Post-

with Natasha Fyffe, Genesis Future Curator. It would

Impressionism, experiencing a profound kinship with

have been impossible without the dedication and

him that endures to this day. This exhibition presents

expertise of Joanna Weston, Exhibitions Manager,

a selection of paintings and drawings by Van Gogh

Guy Carr, Assistant Exhibitions Manager, and Giulia

alongside Kiefer’s early sketches as well as new canvases

Ariete, Rights and Reproductions Manager, and of

that Kiefer painted in 2019 while consciously thinking

the exhibition designers Wayne Daly and Claire Lyon.

about Van Gogh, and other works that testify to this

Sincerest thanks are due to Andrea Tarsia, Director

continuing influence. The aim is not to compare, but

of Exhibitions, Idoya Beitia, Head of Exhibitions, and

instead to invite us to gain new insights into Van Gogh

Adrian Locke, Chief Curator, for their tireless support,

by seeing his work through Kiefer’s eyes, and likewise

as well as to Peter Sawbridge, Head of Publishing

to experience Kiefer’s work through his meditations

and Editorial Director, and the RA Publications team

on an artist who has inspired him throughout his

for creating a catalogue that so perfectly reflects the

nearly sixty-year career.

spirit of this project. Finally, we thank the many other

The exhibition has been organised by the Royal Academy of Arts and developed in close collaboration with

members of Royal Academy staff who have contributed to the exhibition’s development and delivery.

the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam. The Royal Academy

We are extremely grateful to the supporters of this

is indebted to the Van Gogh Museum for its exceptional

project, who have helped us to realise our ambitions. We

loan of paintings and drawings by Van Gogh, and to its

extend our heartfelt thanks to the Rothschild Foundation

other lenders for agreeing to part, for a time, with some

and White Cube. We also owe much gratitude to

of their greatest treasures. It has been a pleasure to work

Gregory Annenberg Weingarten, Founder of GRoW @

closely with Anselm Kiefer, who has contributed with

Annenberg, Simon Morris and Annalisa Burello and other

characteristic enthusiasm and dedication to this project.

benefactors who wish to remain anonymous. Last but not

Particular thanks are owed to Waltraud Forelli and Lucas

least, we thank H. E. Miguel Berger, Ambassador of the

Pottier at Atelier Anselm Kiefer, and to Jay Jopling and

Federal Republic of Germany to the United Kingdom,

Susannah Hyman at White Cube.

for his unwavering support.

The exhibition in London is based on the Van Gogh Museum’s section of the two-venue exhibition ‘Anselm Kiefer: Sag mir wo die Blumen sind’, held

Rebecca Salter cbe pra

jointly at the Van Gogh Museum and the Stedelijk

President, Royal Academy of Arts

Museum, marking an historic collaboration between

RA Kiefer_Prelims 11 KJ.indd 8

these two institutions. At the Van Gogh Museum,

Emilie E. S. Gordenker

the exhibition was curated by Emilie Gordenker and

Director, Van Gogh Museum

14/05/2025 14:51

RA Kiefer_Prelims 11 KJ.indd 9

14/05/2025 14:51

RA Kiefer_Prelims 11 KJ.indd 12

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RA Kiefer_Prelims 11 KJ.indd 13

14/05/2025 14:51

RA Kiefer_Prelims 11 KJ.indd 12

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RA Kiefer_Prelims 11 KJ.indd 13

14/05/2025 14:51

19

things that are put in a new context here, without emotion, without subjectivity, without reference to humanity? No. What we have in front of us is a wellordered, accessible structure, which at the same time contains an inaccessible secret. This is even more evident in the paintings that Van Gogh painted just before his death. Having reached the finishing line, having found the means, having become a master, having made up for his lack of talent, at a time when he could have continued in full command of his options – that is when he gave up.

Did Van Gogh give up, or is it as in Friedrich Hölderlin’s poem: ‘To the Fates’ (1796–98)?

Give me just one summer, you Mighty Ones!

And an autumn to perfect my song, …

The soul denied its god-given right in life Will not find rest down in Orcus either.

But when I have accomplished my great task, Perfected the poem on which my heart is set, Then be welcome, silence of the shadow world! 2 In Van Gogh’s painting The Starry Night (fig. 4) of 1889 we have a completely different sky to that of the Wheatfield with Partridge, constructed from brushstrokes that form spirals. Then there is the of a female rural worker (cat. 3). He writes about the

strange dragon, which recalls St John’s Book of

Fig. 4

struggle between the world created by the artist and

Revelation;3 and the stars, each of which creates its own

Vincent van Gogh, The Starry Night, 1889.

Oil on canvas, 73.7 × 92.1 cm.

The Museum of Modern Art, New York, acquired through the Lillie P. Bliss Bequest (by exchange)

the earth, which closes itself off.

spiral; and finally the moon, which is illuminated even

Fig. 5 Vincent van Gogh, Self-portrait, 1889.

Oil on canvas, 57.8 × 44.5 cm.

National Gallery of Art, Washington DC, collection of Mr. and Mrs. John Hay Whitney

RA Kiefer_Kiefer essay 09 KJ.indd 18

14/05/2025 14:51

RA Kiefer_Kiefer essay 09 KJ.indd 19

I quote as I remember: ‘Truth happens in Van

inside its crescent. What comes to my mind is string

Gogh’s painting. This does not mean that something

theory – different multi-dimensional spaces arising out

at hand is correctly portrayed, but rather that in the

of each other – infinite numbers of strings that come

revelation of the equipmental being of the shoes beings

together and are entangled for a short moment, detach

as a whole – world and earth in their counterplay –

themselves again – or not – and can be disentangled

attain to unconcealment.’1 The earth as the secret,

when you pull at one end. The cypress and the church

which the artist in his struggle does not so much

spire, in contrast, are the only earth-bound elements in

resolve as guard. Does that mean that it is only the

the painting. The spire, in particular, looks like a probe.

14/05/2025 14:51

19

things that are put in a new context here, without emotion, without subjectivity, without reference to humanity? No. What we have in front of us is a wellordered, accessible structure, which at the same time contains an inaccessible secret. This is even more evident in the paintings that Van Gogh painted just before his death. Having reached the finishing line, having found the means, having become a master, having made up for his lack of talent, at a time when he could have continued in full command of his options – that is when he gave up.

Did Van Gogh give up, or is it as in Friedrich Hölderlin’s poem: ‘To the Fates’ (1796–98)?

Give me just one summer, you Mighty Ones!

And an autumn to perfect my song, …

The soul denied its god-given right in life Will not find rest down in Orcus either.

But when I have accomplished my great task, Perfected the poem on which my heart is set, Then be welcome, silence of the shadow world! 2 In Van Gogh’s painting The Starry Night (fig. 4) of 1889 we have a completely different sky to that of the Wheatfield with Partridge, constructed from brushstrokes that form spirals. Then there is the of a female rural worker (cat. 3). He writes about the

strange dragon, which recalls St John’s Book of

Fig. 4

struggle between the world created by the artist and

Revelation;3 and the stars, each of which creates its own

Vincent van Gogh, The Starry Night, 1889.

Oil on canvas, 73.7 × 92.1 cm.

The Museum of Modern Art, New York, acquired through the Lillie P. Bliss Bequest (by exchange)

the earth, which closes itself off.

spiral; and finally the moon, which is illuminated even

Fig. 5 Vincent van Gogh, Self-portrait, 1889.

Oil on canvas, 57.8 × 44.5 cm.

National Gallery of Art, Washington DC, collection of Mr. and Mrs. John Hay Whitney

RA Kiefer_Kiefer essay 09 KJ.indd 18

14/05/2025 14:51

RA Kiefer_Kiefer essay 09 KJ.indd 19

I quote as I remember: ‘Truth happens in Van

inside its crescent. What comes to my mind is string

Gogh’s painting. This does not mean that something

theory – different multi-dimensional spaces arising out

at hand is correctly portrayed, but rather that in the

of each other – infinite numbers of strings that come

revelation of the equipmental being of the shoes beings

together and are entangled for a short moment, detach

as a whole – world and earth in their counterplay –

themselves again – or not – and can be disentangled

attain to unconcealment.’1 The earth as the secret,

when you pull at one end. The cypress and the church

which the artist in his struggle does not so much

spire, in contrast, are the only earth-bound elements in

resolve as guard. Does that mean that it is only the

the painting. The spire, in particular, looks like a probe.

14/05/2025 14:51

29

those lines on the other side of the wall. There is not any aerial perspective that might – in some other way – continue the direction of the lines into the distance. The field before us seems to be squeezed by the surrounding walls – it seems to swell under the lateral pressure.

A large sun hangs above the mountains in the background. The concentric radiation spills out into the sky, the lines could be continued into the field, if there was not a wall. Thus, there are two foci: the large sun and the vanishing point, cut off by the straight line of the wall. They rival each other and cannot be reconciled within the painting. Earth and cosmos are separated.

If we removed the wall, it would be a perfect picture.

What is most striking in The Church at Auverssur-Oise is the colour of the church windows (fig. 12).

They are painted in the same Prussian blue as the dark sky, the same unreal deep blue as the sky above the wheatfield. The view through the windows does not show the interior of the church but the sky behind, as though the church were a ruin. But even if it were a ruin, that does not quite work either, because the viewpoint is such that we should be seeing the trees behind and not the sky. Only the openings in the spire are at the right height to reveal the sky – if the building were a ruin.

The interior of the church draws in the sky and presents the viewer with a second atmosphere of the same colour, enclosed within the walls of the building.

The church becomes the custodian of a bit of cut-out sky. The interior of the church becomes an imaginary space – it encloses what otherwise can only be found in the uncontained and infinite space. Different realities are nested one inside another, different perspectives interlock.

This makes me think of Alain-Fournier’s famous novel Le Grand Meaulnes (1913). It was the only book Fig. 12 Vincent van Gogh, The Church at Auvers-sur-Oise, 1890. Oil on canvas, 93 × 74.5 cm. Musée d’Orsay, Paris

RA Kiefer_Kiefer essay 09 KJ.indd 28

Fig. 13

Alain-Fournier published – he died a year later in the First World War. Although I read it a long time ago, I still remember it as if I had read it yesterday, especially the opening pages with their interplay of dream and reality.

14/05/2025 14:51

Vincent van Gogh, Wheatfield with a Reaper, 1889. Oil on canvas, 73.2 × 92.7 cm. Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (Vincent van Gogh Foundation)

RA Kiefer_Kiefer essay 09 KJ.indd 29

14/05/2025 14:51

29

those lines on the other side of the wall. There is not any aerial perspective that might – in some other way – continue the direction of the lines into the distance. The field before us seems to be squeezed by the surrounding walls – it seems to swell under the lateral pressure.

A large sun hangs above the mountains in the background. The concentric radiation spills out into the sky, the lines could be continued into the field, if there was not a wall. Thus, there are two foci: the large sun and the vanishing point, cut off by the straight line of the wall. They rival each other and cannot be reconciled within the painting. Earth and cosmos are separated.

If we removed the wall, it would be a perfect picture.

What is most striking in The Church at Auverssur-Oise is the colour of the church windows (fig. 12).

They are painted in the same Prussian blue as the dark sky, the same unreal deep blue as the sky above the wheatfield. The view through the windows does not show the interior of the church but the sky behind, as though the church were a ruin. But even if it were a ruin, that does not quite work either, because the viewpoint is such that we should be seeing the trees behind and not the sky. Only the openings in the spire are at the right height to reveal the sky – if the building were a ruin.

The interior of the church draws in the sky and presents the viewer with a second atmosphere of the same colour, enclosed within the walls of the building.

The church becomes the custodian of a bit of cut-out sky. The interior of the church becomes an imaginary space – it encloses what otherwise can only be found in the uncontained and infinite space. Different realities are nested one inside another, different perspectives interlock.

This makes me think of Alain-Fournier’s famous novel Le Grand Meaulnes (1913). It was the only book Fig. 12 Vincent van Gogh, The Church at Auvers-sur-Oise, 1890. Oil on canvas, 93 × 74.5 cm. Musée d’Orsay, Paris

RA Kiefer_Kiefer essay 09 KJ.indd 28

Fig. 13

Alain-Fournier published – he died a year later in the First World War. Although I read it a long time ago, I still remember it as if I had read it yesterday, especially the opening pages with their interplay of dream and reality.

14/05/2025 14:51

Vincent van Gogh, Wheatfield with a Reaper, 1889. Oil on canvas, 73.2 × 92.7 cm. Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (Vincent van Gogh Foundation)

RA Kiefer_Kiefer essay 09 KJ.indd 29

14/05/2025 14:51

Van Gogh and Kiefer: An Affinity of Sunflowers Simon Schama

Why are so many drawn to the art of Anselm Kiefer,

resurrection; between the relaxed descriptiveness

irrespective of where and when they encounter it?

of prose and the gem-sharp perceptions of poetry;

Because, invariably, his work is about something.

between the choice of words and the design of images;

Something other than contemporary art itself: its

salvation and despair; fertility and sterility; and (since

ephemeral ironies, its theory-clotted navel-gazing, its

fire can be the liberation of seed), incineration and

vulgar polemics, its cheaply bought, and expensively

germination. Nearly all of which is to say, between

sold, moral posturing. In a multitude of ways Kiefer’s

physical and metaphysical worlds.

art is the enemy of the contemporary art world and its

RA Kiefer_Schama essay 07 KJ.indd 32

14/05/2025 14:52

Kiefer’s work, however mighty in confrontational

splashy carnival of vanities. It is, in all the ways that

power, is nonetheless at its core profoundly unself-

ultimately matter, serious. That might be said, too, of

satisfied. In this respect too, he finds affinity with Van

Vincent van Gogh. For all his craving to be supported

Gogh who, Kiefer says, ‘throughout his entire life ...

and befriended by the art world of his own time, Van

wanted to do something great, and he was constantly

Gogh became so inured to its rejection that towards

failing.’2 Recalling times in the 1970s and 1980s when

the end of his life he wrote to his friend, the painter

he felt ‘desperate’ at another failure, Kiefer would

Emile Bernard, that the only true paragon of an artist

smother the unsatisfactory pictures with oil or shellac,

was Christ: ‘greater than all artists – disdaining marble

a kind of alchemical potion, willing it to mutate

and clay and paint – working in LIVING FLESH’, making

into fresh animation. The perpetual possibility (or

‘neither statues nor paintings nor even books…..

actuality) of destruction is the condition of creation;

he states it loud and clear.. he made.. LIVING men,

the endless morphing from nothing to something

immortals’. Such thoughts, he explained: ‘[raise] us

and back to nothing again. ‘Only iconoclast painters

above art itself. They enable us to glimpse – the art

are painters’ he adds, 3 echoing Picasso’s belief that

of making life, the art of being immortal – alive.’ 1

a painting is the sum of its many destructions.4 ‘To be

Without too much hyperbole the same thing

able to begin again. usually what you want most when

might reasonably be said of Anselm Kiefer, a restless

you have something that came to nothing is to begin

intellect, whose work is also the tutor of thought. His

it again. that’s how it is in life.’5 Kiefer says he likes to

reflections have driven the art of the past: the plight of

apply straw to his paintings (as he does in his homages

Fig. 16

humanity caught between nature and history; between

to Van Gogh’s late wheatfields) ‘because you can burn it’.6

Simon Schama in front of The Crows, Atelier Anselm Kiefer, Croissy, July 2024

the mapped earth and the infinite space of the cosmos;

RA Kiefer_Schama essay 07 KJ.indd 33

between compulsive destruction and unbidden

This perpetual itch of creative discontent, the reach for meaning beyond the frame, is the ultimate

14/05/2025 14:52

Van Gogh and Kiefer: An Affinity of Sunflowers Simon Schama

Why are so many drawn to the art of Anselm Kiefer,

resurrection; between the relaxed descriptiveness

irrespective of where and when they encounter it?

of prose and the gem-sharp perceptions of poetry;

Because, invariably, his work is about something.

between the choice of words and the design of images;

Something other than contemporary art itself: its

salvation and despair; fertility and sterility; and (since

ephemeral ironies, its theory-clotted navel-gazing, its

fire can be the liberation of seed), incineration and

vulgar polemics, its cheaply bought, and expensively

germination. Nearly all of which is to say, between

sold, moral posturing. In a multitude of ways Kiefer’s

physical and metaphysical worlds.

art is the enemy of the contemporary art world and its

RA Kiefer_Schama essay 07 KJ.indd 32

14/05/2025 14:52

Kiefer’s work, however mighty in confrontational

splashy carnival of vanities. It is, in all the ways that

power, is nonetheless at its core profoundly unself-

ultimately matter, serious. That might be said, too, of

satisfied. In this respect too, he finds affinity with Van

Vincent van Gogh. For all his craving to be supported

Gogh who, Kiefer says, ‘throughout his entire life ...

and befriended by the art world of his own time, Van

wanted to do something great, and he was constantly

Gogh became so inured to its rejection that towards

failing.’2 Recalling times in the 1970s and 1980s when

the end of his life he wrote to his friend, the painter

he felt ‘desperate’ at another failure, Kiefer would

Emile Bernard, that the only true paragon of an artist

smother the unsatisfactory pictures with oil or shellac,

was Christ: ‘greater than all artists – disdaining marble

a kind of alchemical potion, willing it to mutate

and clay and paint – working in LIVING FLESH’, making

into fresh animation. The perpetual possibility (or

‘neither statues nor paintings nor even books…..

actuality) of destruction is the condition of creation;

he states it loud and clear.. he made.. LIVING men,

the endless morphing from nothing to something

immortals’. Such thoughts, he explained: ‘[raise] us

and back to nothing again. ‘Only iconoclast painters

above art itself. They enable us to glimpse – the art

are painters’ he adds, 3 echoing Picasso’s belief that

of making life, the art of being immortal – alive.’ 1

a painting is the sum of its many destructions.4 ‘To be

Without too much hyperbole the same thing

able to begin again. usually what you want most when

might reasonably be said of Anselm Kiefer, a restless

you have something that came to nothing is to begin

intellect, whose work is also the tutor of thought. His

it again. that’s how it is in life.’5 Kiefer says he likes to

reflections have driven the art of the past: the plight of

apply straw to his paintings (as he does in his homages

Fig. 16

humanity caught between nature and history; between

to Van Gogh’s late wheatfields) ‘because you can burn it’.6

Simon Schama in front of The Crows, Atelier Anselm Kiefer, Croissy, July 2024

the mapped earth and the infinite space of the cosmos;

RA Kiefer_Schama essay 07 KJ.indd 33

between compulsive destruction and unbidden

This perpetual itch of creative discontent, the reach for meaning beyond the frame, is the ultimate

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46

prints to paintings and the installation of actual straw and wheat stalks at Gagosian Le Bourget (2012–13), all titled Morgenthau Plan (fig. 27). This was a proposal offered to Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1944 by his Secretary of the Treasury, Henry Morgenthau Jr., as a vision of what to do with conquered Germany after the Second World War. To pre-empt any future recurrence of German belligerence, Morgenthau argued for a brutally Carthaginian peace. This entailed the permanent dismantling and destruction of its industrial heartland in the Ruhr and the conversion of industrial zones into purely agricultural country, accompanied, if necessary, by the enforced migration of millions of industrial workers into territory far removed from the temptations and wherewithal of re-armament. Initially the Plan met with a sympathetic hearing from the US President, but appalled opposition from members of his cabinet, including the Secretary of State, Cordell Hull. In Germany itself the plan of ‘the Jew Morgenthau’ was pounced on by Joseph Goebbels to stiffen the resolve of national resistance to the economic reduction to what Winston Churchill called ‘primarily a pastoral and agricultural country’. This in turn led the most influential American generals conducting the campaign and occupation, in particular George Marshall and Lucius Clay, to urge the President to reject the plan as dangerously counter-productive.

Though Dwight Eisenhower apparently toyed with the plan, by the time Kiefer learned about it in school in the 1950s, it had been abandoned, not least because its consequences were calculated to lead to mass starvation and because the stabilisation of Fig. 27

German democracy, critically needed in the Cold War,

Anselm Kiefer, Morgenthau Plan, 2012. Acrylic, emulsion, oil and shellac on inkjet prints, mounted on canvas, overall: 330 × 570.1 × 7.9 cm, 3 panels, each: 330 × 190 × 8 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Denise and Andrew Saul Fund, 2013

would best be served by reconstruction rather than its

RA Kiefer_Schama essay 07 KJ.indd 46

opposite. Ever alert to the unintended ironies of history Kiefer has spoken about his amusement that what was intended in 1944 to punish and weaken Germany had, within a few years, precisely the

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RA Kiefer_Schama essay 07 KJ.indd 47

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prints to paintings and the installation of actual straw and wheat stalks at Gagosian Le Bourget (2012–13), all titled Morgenthau Plan (fig. 27). This was a proposal offered to Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1944 by his Secretary of the Treasury, Henry Morgenthau Jr., as a vision of what to do with conquered Germany after the Second World War. To pre-empt any future recurrence of German belligerence, Morgenthau argued for a brutally Carthaginian peace. This entailed the permanent dismantling and destruction of its industrial heartland in the Ruhr and the conversion of industrial zones into purely agricultural country, accompanied, if necessary, by the enforced migration of millions of industrial workers into territory far removed from the temptations and wherewithal of re-armament. Initially the Plan met with a sympathetic hearing from the US President, but appalled opposition from members of his cabinet, including the Secretary of State, Cordell Hull. In Germany itself the plan of ‘the Jew Morgenthau’ was pounced on by Joseph Goebbels to stiffen the resolve of national resistance to the economic reduction to what Winston Churchill called ‘primarily a pastoral and agricultural country’. This in turn led the most influential American generals conducting the campaign and occupation, in particular George Marshall and Lucius Clay, to urge the President to reject the plan as dangerously counter-productive.

Though Dwight Eisenhower apparently toyed with the plan, by the time Kiefer learned about it in school in the 1950s, it had been abandoned, not least because its consequences were calculated to lead to mass starvation and because the stabilisation of Fig. 27

German democracy, critically needed in the Cold War,

Anselm Kiefer, Morgenthau Plan, 2012. Acrylic, emulsion, oil and shellac on inkjet prints, mounted on canvas, overall: 330 × 570.1 × 7.9 cm, 3 panels, each: 330 × 190 × 8 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Denise and Andrew Saul Fund, 2013

would best be served by reconstruction rather than its

RA Kiefer_Schama essay 07 KJ.indd 46

opposite. Ever alert to the unintended ironies of history Kiefer has spoken about his amusement that what was intended in 1944 to punish and weaken Germany had, within a few years, precisely the

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RA Kiefer_Schama essay 07 KJ.indd 47

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opposite effect. But, also predictably, imagining what a transformed Germany might have looked like, Kiefer produced images of a country given over to wildflower meadows and ripening grain that had something of a neo-Romantic allure; not so much a draconian punishment as an inadvertent gift. Not, of course, a straightforward social bonus; some of the iterations, based on photographs of fields and meadows near his former studio-estate, now part of the Eschaton Foundation, in Barjac in the southern region of the Gard, are darkened with shellac and are anything but bucolic. But other paintings feature rows of cow parsley (known in America more poetically as Queen Anne’s lace) set parallel to the picture plane and seen close-up beneath mildly suspended clouds, as if from the point of view of a field mouse. The installation at Gagosian had a gallery to itself, the rows of straw and wheat planted between the walls of the white cube, so that the piece is, at the same time, barrier and cereal playground, felicitous and ominous, just the way Kiefer likes it, at least where history is concerned.

Vincent van Gogh’s last year and a half was full of such compositional barriers and disorientations: gardens and parks in which trees stand sentinel against admission; figures, lovers lost, perhaps happily, perhaps not, in the suburban woods. Like Kiefer, I too do not believe that during Van Gogh’s stay at Auvers-sur-Oise, where he shot himself in a wheatfield, disorientation was tantamount to a loss of mental control. His creative productivity during 1890 was in fact astonishing – almost unprecedented in his short career – and several letters written to his brother Theo express a kind of creative rapture (fig. 28). That

Fig. 28

he was personally distressed is also certain, but the

Vincent van Gogh, Wheatfield under Thunderclouds, 1890. Oil on canvas, 50.4 × 101.3 cm. Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (Vincent van Gogh Foundation)

RA Kiefer_Schama essay 07 KJ.indd 48

reasons might have been domestic; a panicked anxiety about the consequences of Theo’s intention to give up his regular job at the art gallery for an independent

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49

opposite effect. But, also predictably, imagining what a transformed Germany might have looked like, Kiefer produced images of a country given over to wildflower meadows and ripening grain that had something of a neo-Romantic allure; not so much a draconian punishment as an inadvertent gift. Not, of course, a straightforward social bonus; some of the iterations, based on photographs of fields and meadows near his former studio-estate, now part of the Eschaton Foundation, in Barjac in the southern region of the Gard, are darkened with shellac and are anything but bucolic. But other paintings feature rows of cow parsley (known in America more poetically as Queen Anne’s lace) set parallel to the picture plane and seen close-up beneath mildly suspended clouds, as if from the point of view of a field mouse. The installation at Gagosian had a gallery to itself, the rows of straw and wheat planted between the walls of the white cube, so that the piece is, at the same time, barrier and cereal playground, felicitous and ominous, just the way Kiefer likes it, at least where history is concerned.

Vincent van Gogh’s last year and a half was full of such compositional barriers and disorientations: gardens and parks in which trees stand sentinel against admission; figures, lovers lost, perhaps happily, perhaps not, in the suburban woods. Like Kiefer, I too do not believe that during Van Gogh’s stay at Auvers-sur-Oise, where he shot himself in a wheatfield, disorientation was tantamount to a loss of mental control. His creative productivity during 1890 was in fact astonishing – almost unprecedented in his short career – and several letters written to his brother Theo express a kind of creative rapture (fig. 28). That

Fig. 28

he was personally distressed is also certain, but the

Vincent van Gogh, Wheatfield under Thunderclouds, 1890. Oil on canvas, 50.4 × 101.3 cm. Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (Vincent van Gogh Foundation)

RA Kiefer_Schama essay 07 KJ.indd 48

reasons might have been domestic; a panicked anxiety about the consequences of Theo’s intention to give up his regular job at the art gallery for an independent

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RA Kiefer_Schama essay 07 KJ.indd 49

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6

5

Vincent van Gogh Landscape with Figures Pushing Wheelbarrows, 1890 Pencil on paper, 23.8 × 31.9 cm Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (Vincent van Gogh Foundation)

Vincent van Gogh Field with Irises near Arles, 1888 Oil on canvas, 54 × 65 cm Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (Vincent van Gogh Foundation)

RA Kiefer_Plate section 08 KJ.indd 62

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6

5

Vincent van Gogh Landscape with Figures Pushing Wheelbarrows, 1890 Pencil on paper, 23.8 × 31.9 cm Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (Vincent van Gogh Foundation)

Vincent van Gogh Field with Irises near Arles, 1888 Oil on canvas, 54 × 65 cm Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (Vincent van Gogh Foundation)

RA Kiefer_Plate section 08 KJ.indd 62

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