Kiefer / Van Gogh

Royal Academy of Arts (London), Jun/25 – Oct/25

The Royal Academy’s exhibition pairs Anselm Kiefer with Vincent van Gogh proposing a cross-century dialogue between two artists. Kiefer, the contemporary German painter and sculptor known for his engagement with history, memory, and materiality, traces the start of his own artistic journey to Van Gogh’s footsteps across northern Europe.

Kiefer left Germany at the age of eighteen, traveling through the Netherlands, Belgium, and ultimately to Arles, France, where he spent time drawing, absorbing the landscape and places where Van Gogh lived and worked. Like many young aspiring artists, Kiefer sought inspiration from the paths of his predecessors, and Van Gogh’s commitment to work and the pioneering technique of his paintings influenced many artists.

According to Kiefer, he was not primarily interested in the emotional elements typically associated with Van Gogh. Instead, he admired the “confident construction” of Van Gogh’s paintings – a strong sense of order and balance in composition, even as Van Gogh’s personal life was falling apart. This confidence, expressed through decisive lines, deliberate brushstrokes, and the careful organisation of space, became a model for Kiefer’s own explorations of structure and expressive forms.

The exhibition presents some of Kiefer’s early drawings from 1963, made in graphite and pen, in which he depicts fields, paths, and trees. These drawings resemble Van Gogh’s in their subject and use of line: repetitive, deliberate strokes that define planes and depth, conveying clarity and purpose to the composition. One room in the show displays a number of Van Gogh’s own landscapes and portraits – some well-known, others less familiar – guiding viewers toward the thematic and formal connections between the two artists.

Van Gogh’s painting of books finds a counterpart in Kiefer’s recurring motif of books, which he casts in lead for large installations to signify the weight of knowledge and the peril of power. Van Gogh’s book painting, meanwhile, possesses a mystical, almost surreal quality.

The later section of the exhibition features Kiefer’s mature works, created decades later with full awareness of Van Gogh’s influence. A collage of woodcuts depicting a field of black sunflowers highlights the shared iconography: sunflowers long associated with both artists, though Kiefer uses them as a symbol of death. In contrast to Van Gogh, Kiefer presents monumental paintings that occupy entire walls. He incorporates burnt straw, recalling Van Gogh’s depictions of fields, while others feature swirling spirals across the surface, quoting the movement of the stars in the sky of Van Gogh’s most famous painting Starry Night.

Gold, a recurring element in Kiefer’s work that he had used sparingly in earlier paintings, envelops nearly the entire canvas. In his practice, gold alludes to religious iconography, mythology, and to alchemical traditions, and he frequently incorporates different metals to expand these symbolic associations.

The exhibition aims to foreground the dialogue between the two artists, but the conversation between them feels asymmetrical. Kiefer’s works are visually ambitious, and their scale and material density sometimes risk overshadowing the subtler qualities of Van Gogh’s paintings. Yet there are instances where the connection becomes more apparent. One senses a residual optimism in Kiefer’s work – often dark and apocalyptic – emerging out of his dialogue with Van Gogh’s paintings. Kiefer was, and continues to be, influenced by Van Gogh, as he grapples with the same preoccupations that have shaped his practice since youth: existentialism, the formal elements of the landscape, and a persistent symbolic vocabulary.

Ana Teles for London Art Walk
September 2025