Brunhilde Sleeps

Artist Anselm Kiefer (German, born 1945)

Publisher [Anselm Kiefer, s.l., 1980]

Date1980

Dimensionspage (irregularly cut): 23 1/4 x 17 5/16 in. (590 x 440mm)

Mediumbook with photographs, acrylic emulsion, pain, graphite, and chalk; mounted on cardboard

ClassificationBooks

Credit LineGift of Molly and Walter Bareiss

Object number

1984.602

Not on View

DescriptionUnique book with photographs with added acrylic emulsion, paint, graphite, and chalk mounted to cardboard.

Label TextAnselm Kiefer is one of the most important contemporary German painters, and his art often draws on Germanic myth. This wordless compilation of thick, hand-hewn pages is a picture book inspired by Teutonic legend. The photographic images, heightened with hand-applied paint, include snow-covered forest scenes, close-up views of ice, snow-covered boughs, streams trickling past snow-covered banks, and an eerie dark interior with a water-filled tub lit by a ring of candles. On the images, the white paint often suggests falling snow flakes; the orange paint evokes flames. The title Brunhilde Sleeps probably refers to the heroine in Wagner’s opera Die Walküre (The Valkyre), or to the legend that inspired the opera. In the story, because Brünhilde had disobeyed the god Wotan, she was made to fall into an enchanted sleep. Placed on a secluded mountain top, she was surrounded by a magic circle of fire until the hero Siegfried found her and broke the spell. Later in the story Brünhilde "sleeps eternally" after her tragic immolation on Siegfried's funeral pyre.Published ReferencesToledo Museum of Art, Toledo Museum of Art Masterworks, Toledo, 2009, p. 348, repr. (col.).Exhibition History

Toledo, The Toledo Museum of Art, The Bareiss Collection of Modern Illustrated Books from Toulouse-Lautrec to Kiefer, 1985, no. 33, repr.

Fort Lauderdale, Museum of Art, 1987.

Los Angeles, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1987.

New Haven, Yale University Art Gallery, 1989.

Toledo, Toledo Museum of Art, Splendid Pages: The Molly and Walter Bareiss Collection of Modern Illustrated Books, Feb. 14--May 11, 2003.

Toledo, Toledo Museum of Art, Looks Good on Paper: Masterworks and Favorites, Oct. 10, 2014-Jan. 11, 2015.