ANSELM KIEFER | Herr und Leander

mixed media on canvasExecuted in 1990. This work is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity signed by the artist.

Galerie Di Meo, Paris
Acquired from the above by the current owners in 1990

Pierre Nahon, L'Histoire de la Galerie Beaubourg I 1936-1988, Paris, 2009, p. 61, illustrated in colour
Marianne et Pierre Nahon, Dictionnaire amoureux illustré de l'Art moderne et contemporain, Gründ, 2018, p. 182, illustrated in colour

The colours are fairly accurate in the printed catalogue illustration although it does not accurately convey the relief in the original work. The work is executed on its original canvas and has not been relined. The work is slightly dirty. There are stabilized cracks in the thicker impastos and imperfections to the surface which are in keeping with the artist's technique. All collage elements are stable. The metal boat is hung on metallic wires attached to the stretcher. This work is in very good original condition.
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I manipulate colors and materials without precisely knowing what I am doing, but something is pushing me. After a while, I end up with something that is not yet a painting, but that I can confront myself to. A struggle then begins in my mind about the next steps I should take. There are always a hundred possible directions.
Anselm Kiefer  

Landscape without horizon in which our eyes wander for a few seconds, overwhelmed by the immensity of this stellar composition, before fixating on a mysterious vessel that resembles a cloud, Herr und Leander reflects Anselm Kiefer’s fascination for telluric forces. From the beginning of his career, Kiefer has always questioned the place of men in the universe through works which epic dimension is unique in contemporary creation. Famous for his resort to media rarely used in painting, that are both meaningful and revelator of his personal quest, Kiefer here employs one of his favorite materials, lead, to depict a timeless scene, or rather a scene of another time, that of stars shining millions of light years away in the milky way.

Appearing in Anselm Kiefer’s work in the 70s, lead came to hold a major place in his paintings –if they can still be called so- starting in 1985, the year when he acquired the roof of the Cologne cathedral then undergoing renovation. Crucial in the composition of Herr und Leander, lead gives a memorial depth to the piece, which at the same time acquires the ruin-type of beauty praised by romantics since the 19^th century.

Keifer also uses lead as an alchemist, changing this metal into an enigmatic and versatile gold, able of both darkness and light and holding protective and malicious powers. Shiny like silver, it forms a patina in contact with the carbon of the air, and takes up the earthly and Saturnine hues which gives Herr und Leander its cold Nordic painting splendor.