In Wagner’s opera Parsifal, Herzeleide, a grieving widow, raises her son in seclusion to protect him from danger. When Parsifal leaves home to fulfill his destiny, she dies of a broken heart (Herzeleide means "suffering heart" in German). Kiefer found his composition in a book from the Nazi era, a time when mothers were exalted for sacrificing their sons for the war. In the reproduction that was Kiefer’s source, a farmer’s wife looks at a document stating that her farm must be inherited by one son; in his watercolor, Kiefer replaced the document with an artist’s palette.
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ARC/Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris. "Anselm Kiefer," May 11–June 21, 1984, no. 127.
Israel Museum, Jerusalem. "Anselm Kiefer," July 31–September 30, 1984, no. 127.
Sezon Museum of Modern Art. "Anselm Kiefer–Melancholia," June 3–July 19, 1993, no. W–16.
National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto. "Anselm Kiefer–Melancholia," August 3–September 5, 1993, no. W–16.
Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art. "Anselm Kiefer–Melancholia," September 18–October 24, 1993, no. W–16.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Anselm Kiefer: Works on Paper, 1969–1993," December 15, 1998–March 21, 1999, no. 30.
New York. Arnold and Marie Schwartz Gallery at the Metropolitan Opera. "From the Met to the Met: Anselm Kiefer and Wagner's Ring," February 17–May 9, 2009, not in brochure.
London. Royal Academy of Arts. "Anselm Kiefer," September 27–December 14, 2014, no. 20.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art [The Met Breuer]. "Provocations: Anselm Kiefer at The Met Breuer," December 13, 2017–April 8, 2018, no catalogue.
Anne Seymour. Anselm Kiefer: Watercolours 1970–1982. Exh. cat., Anthony d'Offay Gallery. London, 1983, unpaginated, no. 17, ill. (color).
Mark Rosenthal. Anselm Kiefer. Exh. cat., Art Institute of Chicago. Chicago and Philadelphia, 1987, p. 66, fig. 47.
Mark Rosenthal, Akira Moriguchi, Sawako Ogiwara, Etsuko Sugiyama, Junsi Magara, and Takashi Suzuki inAnselm Kiefer: Melancholia. Exh. cat.Tokyo, 1993, p. 118.
Mark Rosenthal. Anselm Kiefer–Melancholia. Exh. cat., Sezon Bijutsukan. Tokyo, 1993, pp. 117–18, no. W–16, ill. (color).
Nan Rosenthal in "Recent Acquisitions. A Selection: 1994–1995." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 53 (Fall 1995), p. 68.
Nan Rosenthal. Anselm Kiefer: Works on Paper in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1998, p. 70, no. 30, ill. p. 71 (color).
Jerry Saltz. "Boom and Bust." Village Voice (February 2, 1999), p. 141.
Daniel Arasse. Anselm Kiefer. 2nd ed. [1st ed., 2010]. London, 2014, pp. 107–8, ill. (color).
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