Anselm Kiefer

Anthony d'Offay Gallery, London
Fuji Television Gallery, Tokyo
Aquired by the present owner from above in 1992

Basel, Kunsthalle, Joseph Beuys, Enzo Cucchi, Anselm Kiefer, Jannis Kounellis, March - May 1986
Berlin, Neue Galerie im Alten Museum; Dresden, Staatlichen Kunstsammlungen, Positionen: Malerei aus der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, October 1986 - January 1987, pp. 106 and 107, illustrated in color 
Tokyo, Fuji Television Gallery, Anselm Kiefer, May - July 1992, illustrated in color

Massimo Cacciari and Germano Celant, Anselm Kiefer, Milan, 1997, pp. 294 - 295, illustrated in color

This painting is in very good condition. It consists of two horizontal stretched canvases attached to deep stretcher bars with metal struts on the reverse. The upper canvas is pieced together from three canvases and there are some scattered pin-size holes that can be seen from the reverse. As is typical of the artist's work the weight of the painted medium has caused some rippling and waviness in the lower half of the upper canvas. Overall, as is expected of such heavy pigment with emulsion and shellac, there is cracking in the thick impasto, most of which is apparently stable. The exceptions are primarily located along the horizontal edges where the two canvases meet and along the top edge. Along the horizontal middle, there are old losses and insecure lifting intermittently along the areas of yellow/brown pigment located as follows: from the left edge: 6-7", 14 – 17 ½", 22 ¼-23 ¼", 38-41". From the right edge: the tip of the right corner, 17 ¾ - 19", 28 – 31", 38-39". Along the upper right edge of the top canvas, there are losses in the black pigment as follows: from the right edge, 31 ¼-32 ¼", 33 ½ - 37" (intermittent), 46-47 ½" and 49-51". Along the left edge, located 10-12 inches up from the horizontal middle, there is an area where the pigment and canvas do not extend to the stretcher edge, revealing the stretcher bar on the reverse. There is a 3" crack that extends above this aperture and a shallow cavity extends underneath the aperture. This painting has not been inspected under ultra-violet light. The canvas is unframed.
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