At the forefront of the Neo-Expressionist movement, Anselm Kiefer has impacted the contemporary art world with his painting, sculpture and installation for decades. Born on 8 March 1945 in Donaueschingen, Germany, Kiefer studied law and Romance languages at the Albert Ludwigs University, Freiburg, before leaving the school to study art in 1966. At that point, he attended the Staatliche Hochschule der Dildenden Kunste, where he studied with Peter Dreher and Horst Antes. It was while here that he had his first solo exhibition, “Besetzungen (Occupations)” in 1969, which was composed of photographs about controversial political actions. The following year he continued his studies with the renowned modern artist Joseph Beuys at the Dusseldorf Academy.

Kiefer’s paintings often include glass, straw, wood, and plants parts to create unusual and innovative textures. He uses dull and depressed colors and seemingly careless techniques, as well as treating the canvas violently, even using blowtorches to create desired effects. With both garish and somber colors, naive drawing, and powerful allusions, Kiefer illustrates powerful themes and messages. He uses the fragile and ephemeral nature of these media to contrast with the subject matter of his paintings: German history, myth, and experience. A great deal of his work addresses the myths and chauvinism that lead up to the Third Reich and Nazi propaganda. Influenced by the poetry of Paul Celan and the horrors of the Holocaust, Kiefer examines the xenophobia and homogenization of German culture and the apathy of his contemporaneous generation.

In the 1970s, Kiefer also created a series of German landscapes with somber colors; they are often admired for his great use of linear perspectives and unusual textures. He continued to paint landscapes and interiors in the 1980s, but he also began to contemplate what has been described as “the fate of art and culture in general.” Much of this work is inspired and influenced by his study of ancient Hebrew and Egyptian history and mystical Kabbalism. Perhaps a natural continuance of his examination of tragic German history, he examines “the trauma experienced by entire societies, and the continual rebirth and renewal in life.”

Although he has been traveling extensively to Europe, the United States, India, Mexico, China, and the Middle East since 1971, Kiefer attracted national attention with a very successful traveling exhibition in the USA (1987-89). Since then he has exhibited his work in just world-renowned institutions at the Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, The Royal Academy in London, the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. In 1990 he was awarded the Wolf Prize and in 1999 the Japan Art Association bestowed upon him the Praemium Imperiale for his lifetime achievements. Kiefer currently lives in Provence, France, where he continues to create challenging, provocative art with visually powerful creations and intellectually critical analysis.