From 28 April 2026, the Hortensia Herrero Art Centre (CAHH) will host the first exhibition by the German artist Anselm Kiefer in the city of Valencia (Spain). Developed in close cooperation with the artist, and designed specifically for this venue, the exhibition will occupy six of the art centre’s galleries, first deinstalling the works currently on view to make room for the work of one of the most important artists of our time.
The relationship between Hortensia Herrero and Kiefer goes back almost ten years, when the collector acquired the painting Böse Blumen, then on show at the Royal Academy of Arts’ Summer Exhibition in 2016. The work is now on display in one of the art centre’s main galleries, alongside another two pieces by Anselm Kiefer that are part of the permanent display.
Hortensia Herrero, the sole Spanish representative on ArtNews’ prestigious Top 200 Collectors list, travelled to Kiefer’s studios in Barjac and in Paris to learn more about his practice first-hand and to take part in selecting the works that will go on show in Valencia.
“Anselm Kiefer is one of the core pillars of Hortensia Herrero’s collection and his works are exhibited in the palace’s grand hall. We believe that he is the ideal artist to launch CAHH’s programme of temporary exhibitions,” stated Javier Molins, CAHH’s artistic advisor and curator of the exhibition.
Remaining on view to the public until October 2026, the exhibition will delve deeper into the themes of the works included in the collection, centred on landscape. Following this line, the exhibition will feature works exploring landscape, one of the primary sources of inspiration for this artist together with history, mythology and literature. As Kiefer himself declares, “I think in images. Poems help me. They are like buoys in the sea. I swim towards them, from one to the next. Without them, I would be lost.”
The exhibition will boast the presence of Danaë, one of the largest works Anselm Kiefer has created to date. In this painting, spanning more than thirteen metres wide, Kiefer depicts the interior of Berlin’s Tempelhof Airport while at once alluding to the myth of Danaë in the form of the golden rain falling across the painting. According to Greek mythology, Zeus turned himself into a shower of gold to visit and impregnate Danaë, who had been locked away in a tower to prevent her from having children. It has only been shown once before, in an exhibition in New York in 2022, and will go on exhibit in Europe for the first time.
Danaë (2016-2021), exhibited in the Gagosian Gallery of New York
On Anselm Kiefer
Anselm Kiefer was born in 1945 in Donaueschingen, Germany. In 1992, he moved to France, where he lives and works between Paris and Barjac near Avignon. The artist studied law, literature and linguistics before attending the Academy of Fine Arts in Karlsruhe, and later in Düsseldorf, where he was a student of Joseph Beuys. He was selected for the West German Pavilion at the 39th Venice Biennale in 1980 and his works have since been shown in major solo exhibitions internationally, including at the Art Institute of Chicago (1987); Nationalgalerie, Berlin (1991); Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (1998); Fondation Beyeler, Basel (2001); Guggenheim Bilbao (2007); Royal Academy of Arts, London (2014); Centre Pompidou, Paris (2015); Bibliothèque National de France (2015); Albertina, Vienna (2016); State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg (2017); Rodin Museum, Paris (2017); Met Breuer, New York (2018), among many others.
Kiefer is the recipient of the Praemium Imperiale Award by Japan in 1999, and in 2008 he received the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade. In 2007 he was the first artist since Georges Braque to have a permanent installation commissioned for the Louvre in Paris, and in 2018 his site-specific sculpture Uraeus was exhibited in front of the Rockefeller Center, New York. In 2020, the French President Emmanuel Macron commissioned Anselm Kiefer to create a permanent installation for the Panthéon in Paris.
Second anniversary of CAHH
On 11 November last, the Hortensia Herrero Art Centre celebrated the second anniversary of its opening. Over these two years, 400,000 visitors have passed through its doors to view and enjoy the private collection of Hortensia Herrero, one of the most significant collectors in the international art scene.