{"id":24664,"date":"2025-06-29T14:10:25","date_gmt":"2025-06-29T14:10:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/24664\/"},"modified":"2025-06-29T14:10:25","modified_gmt":"2025-06-29T14:10:25","slug":"the-royal-academys-kiefer-van-gogh-show-offers-a-soaring-spectacle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/24664\/","title":{"rendered":"The Royal Academy\u2019s Kiefer-Van Gogh show offers a soaring spectacle"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kiefer\/Van Gogh (28 June-26 October) at London\u2019s Royal Academy of Arts (RA) presents works by the German artist that are modest in number but enormous in size. The exhibition\u2019s<\/a> finale, The Starry Night (2019), is 8.4m wide. It only just fits on the gallery wall, with around 5cm to spare at each end. Although it does divide into three sections, transporting the work from Kiefer\u2019s studio on the outskirts of Paris and installing it proved a logistical challenge.<\/p>\n

The RA exhibition is a collaboration with the Van Gogh Museum<\/a>, where it was initially shown (7 March-9 June) and seen by 340,000 visitors. The Amsterdam presentation had more than three times the space, so the London show is smaller and includes some different works.<\/p>\n

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Anselm Kiefer with The Crows (2019) in the Royal Academy\u2019s exhibition<\/p>\n

Royal Academy of Arts. Photo: David Parry. \u00a9 Anselm Kiefer<\/p>\n

In London the lead curator is the Royal Academy\u2019s Julien Domercq. Until last year he was at the National Gallery, where he contributed to the exhibition catalogue for Van Gogh: Poets and Lovers (14 November 2024-19 January 2025). Domercq describes Van Gogh as Kiefer\u2019s \u201cfirst artistic love\u201d; there is a \u201cmeeting of minds\u201d between the two artists, he says.<\/p>\n

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A film still of Anselm Kiefer, aged 18, sketching in Provence on the Van Gogh trail (1963)<\/p>\n

\u00a9 SWR<\/p>\n

Kiefer\u2019s love of Van Gogh began in 1963 when, as an 18-year-old student, he went on a pilgrimage to the sites where the Dutchman had lived and worked, sketching his own impressions of places and people. Six of these early drawings are included in the RA show.<\/p>\n

The main presentation at the RA comprises seven huge multimedia \u201cpaintings\u201d (made with oil and acrylic, gold leaf, straw, clay, burnt wood, wire and sunflower seeds)\u2014and a single sculpture (Dana\u00eb, 2019). They are all inspired by Van Gogh and were completed over the past decade.<\/p>\n

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Anselm Kiefer\u2019s Nevermore (2014)<\/p>\n

Courtesy Eschaton Foundation. Photo: Charles Duprat. \u00a9 Anselm Kiefer<\/p>\n

The 5.7m-wide Nevermore (2014) depicts golden wheat, surmounted by a flock of ravens (which appear even more menacing than Van Gogh\u2019s birds in his Wheatfield with Crows<\/a>, July 1890). The title refers to an 1845 poem by Edgar Allen Poe, in which a grieving man is driven mad by a raven repeating the word \u201cNevermore\u201d. Kiefer\u2019s work also has a connection to Van Gogh\u2019s companion Paul Gauguin, who in 1897 himself made a painting called Nevermore, which centres around a naked Tahitian woman lying on a bed and is in the Courtauld Gallery<\/a> collection.<\/p>\n

Kiefer\u2019s massive works are shown in the larger first and third rooms of the RA\u2019s gallery suite, while the middle room is dominated by Van Gogh, creating a very different atmosphere. The Van Goghs comprise both drawings and paintings spanning most of his periods. Domercq deliberately selected pieces which are not directly illustrative of Kiefer, instead going for those where the connections are a \u201clittle looser\u201d. With 11 works, it represents what is essentially a mini Van Gogh exhibition.<\/p>\n

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Van Gogh\u2019s Field with Irises near Arles (May 1888) and Poppy Field (July 1890), with part of Anselm Kiefer\u2019s The Starry Night (2019) visible in the room beyond at the RA exhibition<\/p>\n

Photo: The Art Newspaper<\/p>\n

There are seven Van Gogh paintings, five of which are on loan from the Van Gogh Museum, along with a version of L\u2019Arl\u00e9sienne (April 1890) from a private collection and Poppy Field<\/a> (June 1890) from Kunstmuseum The Hague. There are also four rarely displayed Van Gogh drawings.<\/p>\n

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Van Gogh\u2019s Field with Irises near Arles (May 1888)<\/p>\n

Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (Vincent van Gogh Foundation)<\/p>\n

The finest of the paintings, and a treat for Londoners, is undoubtedly Field with Irises near Arles<\/a> (May 1888). In his homage works Kiefer has not included irises or the skyline of Arles, but the link is with his articulation of space in his large mixed-media works.<\/p>\n

Tribute at White Cube<\/p>\n

Meanwhile White Cube is showing Anselm Kiefer<\/a> (until 16 August) at their Mason\u2019s Yard gallery, just three minutes\u2019 walk away from the RA. Their selling exhibition\u2014which is free admission\u2014has 12 works by Kiefer, all but three of which are large-scale, multimedia pieces.<\/p>\n

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Anselm Kiefer\u2019s Ravens (2019) (main work) and Rising, Rising, Falling Down (2016-24) (sculpture) at White Cube<\/p>\n

Photo: The Art Newspaper <\/p>\n

These include another \u201cravens\u201d work, an even wider one (7.6m) than Nevermore at RA. A golden sky is filled with the birds, which hover above rows of crops disappearing towards the horizon.<\/p>\n

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Anselm Kiefer\u2019s Sweet golden clime (for William Blake) (left) and Clytie (right) (both 2023-25) at White Cube<\/p>\n

Photo: The Art Newspaper<\/p>\n

The ground floor of the White Cube display has four works inspired by Van Gogh\u2019s famed motif, the sunflower. These include Sweet golden clime (for William Blake), whose title comes from one of Blake\u2019s 1794 poems, \u201cAh Sun-flower\u201d. The poet writes about a “weary” sunflower which desperately seeks the sun, tracking its daily movement across the sky\u2014and reaching toward heaven.<\/p>\n

Van Gogh\u2019s Arles sunflowers are exuberant, full of life. Kiefer\u2019s in Sweet golden clime are much more sober, beginning to wilt in a dark field, but set beneath a stretch of golden sky. If you visit the RA show, do make sure to go to White Cube too.<\/p>\n

Martin Bailey<\/strong> is a leading Van Gogh specialist and special correspondent for The Art Newspaper. He has curated exhibitions at the Barbican Art Gallery, Compton Verney\/National Gallery of Scotland and Tate Britain.<\/p>\n

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Martin Bailey\u2019s recent Van Gogh books<\/p>\n

Martin has written a number of bestselling books on Van Gogh\u2019s years in France: The Sunflowers Are Mine: The Story of Van Gogh’s Masterpiece (Frances Lincoln 2013, UK<\/a> and US<\/a>), Studio of the South: Van Gogh in Provence (Frances Lincoln 2016, UK<\/a> and US<\/a>), Starry Night: Van Gogh at the Asylum (White Lion Publishing 2018, UK<\/a> and US<\/a>) and Van Gogh\u2019s Finale: Auvers and the Artist\u2019s Rise to Fame (Frances Lincoln 2021, UK<\/a> and US<\/a>). The Sunflowers are Mine (2024, UK<\/a> and US<\/a>) and Van Gogh\u2019s Finale (2024, UK<\/a> and US<\/a>) are also now available in a more compact paperback format.<\/p>\n

His other recent books include Living with Vincent van Gogh: The Homes & Landscapes that shaped the Artist (White Lion Publishing 2019, UK<\/a> and US<\/a>), which provides an overview of the artist\u2019s life. The Illustrated Provence Letters of Van Gogh has been reissued (Batsford 2021, UK<\/a> and US<\/a>). My Friend Van Gogh\/Emile Bernard provides the first English translation of Bernard\u2019s writings on Van Gogh (David Zwirner Books 2023, UK<\/a>and US<\/a>).<\/p>\n

To contact Martin Bailey, please email vangogh@theartnewspaper.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Please note that he does not undertake authentications.<\/p>\n

Explore all of Martin\u2019s adventures with Van Gogh here<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kiefer\/Van Gogh (28 June-26 October) at London\u2019s Royal Academy of Arts (RA) presents works by the German artist…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":24665,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[22117,22118,648,1032,1033,171,22119,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-24664","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-adventures-with-van-gogh","9":"tag-anselm-kiefer","10":"tag-arts","11":"tag-arts-and-design","12":"tag-design","13":"tag-entertainment","14":"tag-royal-academy-of-arts","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-unitedstates","17":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114767057840964469","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24664","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24664"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24664\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24665"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24664"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24664"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24664"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}