The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of December 13, 2025

Multi-media wall-sized painting in brown and grey tones depicting two rail-tracks emerging from the lower right corner and diverging as they extend towards the horizon. Flaking layers crack and peal away from the panel, giving the illusion of dried mud. Cream paint splashes across a grey blue sky in the upper half. A copper heating coil, splattered with paint to merge with the scene, hangs from the right railway track.

Lot's Wife

1989

Anselm Kiefer

(German, 1945-)
Germany, 20th century
oil paint, ash, stucco, chalk, linseed oil, polymer emulsion, salt, and applied elements (copper heating coil), on canvas, attached to lead foil, on plywood panels
Framed: 350 x 410 cm (137 13/16 x 161 7/16 in.)
Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund 1990.8
© Anselm Kiefer
Location: 229B Contemporary

Did You Know?

The subject of railroad tracks was inspired by the artist’s photograph of the Bordeaux rail facility.

Description

Born in the final year of World War II, Anselm Kiefer addresses the history and legacy of the Third Reich in his native Germany. "We see railway tracks anywhere and think about Auschwitz," the artist said soon after painting Lot's Wife. "It will remain that way in the long run." The drama of the railway tracks dissecting a barren landscape is heightened by the work's surface, dense with gesture and a range of materials, including salt. Referring to the fate of Lot's wife in the Book of Genesis—who was turned to a pillar of salt when she looked back at the destruction of Sodom—Kiefer frames a historical narrative within a biblical one.
  • 1990 -
    The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH, purchased from the artist
  • Hinson, Tom E. "Notable Acquisitions." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 78, no. 3 (1991): 63-147. Reproduced and Mentioned: p. 109 www.jstor.org
    Hinson, Tom E. "Anselm Kiefer: "Lot's Wife"." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 80, no. 4 (1993): 180-85. Reproduced: p. 180, 183; Mentioned: p. 180-85 www.jstor.org
    Cleveland Museum of Art, “The Cleveland Museum of Art Acquires Major Works,” December 20, 1995, Cleveland Museum of Art Archives. archive.org
    Arasse, Daniel. Anselm Kiefer. London: Thames & Hudson, 2014. Reproduced: P. 84
    Cleveland Museum of Art. The CMA Companion: A Guide to the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2014. Mentioned and reproduced: P. 121
    Moore, John L., Esther Jun, Clodagh Keogh, William H. Robinson, Danni Shen, Enid Shomer, and Reto Thüring. Demise: Rina Banerjee, Esperanza Cortés, Jae Rhim Lee, Brian Maguire, Paolo Pelosini, Levent Tuncer. 2018, 8. Mentioned: p. 5; reproduced: p. 8.
    Gallagher, Lowell. Sodomscapes: Hospitality in the Flesh. New York: Fordham University Press, 2017. 1, 2
  • Contemporary Installation. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer).
    Notable Acquisitions. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (June 7-September 15, 1991).
  • {{cite web|title=Lot's Wife|url=false|author=Anselm Kiefer|year=1989|access-date=13 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1990.8