Watercolour Painting in Germany: Durer to Kiefer

Onsite at the Ashmolean and online via Zoom.

Anselm Kiefer produced a significant body of work in watercolour some of which you will see in the Museum's forthcoming exhibition of his Early Works. This was somewhat unusual in the context of cutting-edge contemporary art.

This talk introduces some of the highlights of a well-established practice of watercolour painting in Germany and the German-speaking world.

On two journeys to Italy, in 1494, and again in 1505, Dürer recorded his travels in watercolour; one of the most haunting is in the Ashmolean collection (View of the Cembra Valley). He became, historically, but also metaphorically, the prototype of the travelling artist using watercolour as a tool of exploration, recording new and unexpected sights and perceptions in this uniquely portable and flexible medium.

As well as reflecting a different understanding of watercolour to the model familiar in Britain, Timothy Wilcox's talk offers hints which deepen our appreciation of an important aspect of Kiefer’s art.

In choosing watercolour, Kiefer knowingly reached back through the centuries of a specifically German engagement with the medium, to the works of Joseph Beuys, of Expressionists including Emil Nolde, of Paul Klee with his profound interest in children’s art, and back to Goethe, with his support for a generation of Romantic painters, all well aware of the pioneering landscapes of Albrecht Dürer.