The internationally celebrated artist Anselm Kiefer has been awarded The Queen Sonja Lifetime Achievement Award, the world’s most important prize for printmaking. He will be presented with the Award by Her Majesty Queen Sonja at an Award Ceremony which will be held in Bodø, European City of Culture 2024 on 5 & 6 June 2024. He joins past winners of the Award: David Hockney (2018), Paula Rego (2020) and William Kentridge (2022).
The QSPA Lifetime Achievement Award is a celebration of an artist’s career and lifetime contribution to graphic art and printmaking. Anselm Kiefer is an artist whose pioneering and unique use of woodcuts has played a central role in his work. He incorporates woodcuts into paintings, groups them together to create works that rival the grand scale of his paintings and uses them in his many illustrated artist’s books.
HM Queen Sonja said: "It is a great honour for the QSPA board to present Anselm Kiefer with the Lifetime Achievement Award for his distinguished contribution to the art of printmaking through a long and outstanding career."
HM Queen Sonja of Norway is herself an accomplished artist and a highly regarded printmaker. A passionate believer in the importance of art in everyone’s lives, a key aim of the Award is to make art accessible to all.
Palazzo Strozzi, Florence, Italy (2024).