Anselm Kiefer

Known for: monumental painting addressing German history and mythology

Anselm Kiefer trained with Joseph Beuys and developed a painting practice that confronts German history — the Third Reich, Norse mythology, Kabbalah — through monumental canvases incorporating lead, straw, photographs, and other materials into surfaces of enormous physical density. His early work, in which he photographed himself making the Nazi salute in various European locations, was initially dismissed as provocative; he is now widely considered the most significant German artist of his generation. He moved to southern France in 1991 and to Paris in 2008.