Gerhard Richter

born Dresden (GERMANY) 1932

Gerhard Richter (born February 9, 1932) is a prominent German artist. Richter is considered by some critics as the most important German artists of the post-WWII period and is also one of the world's most expensive, with his paintings often selling for several million dollars apiece.

Gerhard Richter was born in Dresden, Germany, and grew up in the countryside of Upper Lusatia, in Reichenau and Waltersdorf. He left school after tenth grade and apprenticed as an advertising and stage-set painter, before studying at the Dresden Art Academy. Richter taught as a visiting professor at the Hochschule fur bildende Konste in Hamburg and the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, and in 1971 became tenured professor at Dusseldorf Art Academy. In 1983, Richter moved from Dusseldorf to Koln, where he continues to live.

Richter married Marianne Eufinger in 1957. Nine years later, she gave birth to his first daughter, Betty. He married his second wife, the sculptor Isa Genzken, in 1982. Richter had his son, Moritz, with his third wife, Sabine Moritz, the year they were married, 1995. One year later, his second daughter, Ella Maria, was born.

Richter had his first solo show, Gerhard Richter, in 1964 at Galerie Schmela in Dusseldorf. Soon after, he had exhibitions in Munchen and Berlin and by the early 1970s exhibited frequently throughout Europe and the United States. His fourth retrospective, Gerhard Richter: 40 Years of Painting, curated by Robert Storr, opened at New York's Museum of Modern Art in February 2002, then traveled to Chicago, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C. Richter has published a number of catalogues, monographs, and books of his artwork and notes on painting, and has been awarded many honors and prizes for his art. He continues to make and exhibit paintings.

Although Richter gained popularity and critical praise throughout his career, his fame burgeoned during his most recent retrospective exhibition, which declared his place among the most important artists of the 20th century. Today, many call Gerhard Richter the best living painter.

Select Timeline

Select Exhibitions

• 1972 - 48 Portraits. Venice Biennale
• 1986 - Retrospective. Dusseldorf, Berlin and Vienna
• 1988 - Retrospective. Chicago, Toronto, Washington and San Francisco
• 1993 - To 1994 - Retrospective. Paris, Bonn, Stockholm and Madrid
• 1997 - Venice Biennale
• 1997 - Documenta 5-10. Kassel, Germany
• 2002 - Gerhard Richter - Acht Grau. Deutsche Guggenheim. Berlin, Germany
• 2002 - Venice Biennale
• 2002 - To 2003 - Museum of Modern Art. New York, NY
• 2002 - To 2003 - Art Institute of Chicago. Chicago, IL
• 2002 - To 2003 - Museum of Modern Art. San Francisco, CA
• 2002 - To 2003 - Gerhard Richter: Forty Years of Painting. Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. Washington
• 2003 - Gerhard Richter, Atlas. Whitechapel Art Gallery, London
• 2004 - Gerhard Richter - Moving Energies. Essen, Museum Folkwang
• 2004 - Gerhard Richter - Landscapes. Zwirner & Wirth. New York, NY
• 2005 - Gerhard Richter - Marian Goodman, New York, NY

Select Artwork

• Prisma I, 2002
• Rot-Blau-Gelb, 1973

Quotes

• "One has to believe in what one is doing, one has to commit oneself inwardly, in order to do painting. Once obsessed, one ultimately carries it to the point of believing that one might change human beings through painting. But if one lacks this passionate commitment, there is nothing left to do. Then it is best to leave it alone. For basically painting is idiocy."
• "Modern art has always only shown itself to me in trends and blowhards, so I couldn't be a modern artist. There were always powerful movements or groups that today we don't even know anymore."
• "I can't always reach the image in my mind.. almost never, in fact.. so that the abstract image I create is not quite there, but it gets to the point where I can leave it."
• "What I'm attempting in each picture is nothing other than this.. to bring together in a living and viable way, the most different and the most contradictory elements in the greatest possible freedom."
• "Form is all we have to help us cope with fundamentally chaotic facts and assaults. Formulating something is a great start. I trust form, trust my feeling or capacity to find the right form for something. Even if that is only by being well organized. That too is form."
• "The tough part is always at the end. The beginning is always easy."

Publications

• Gerhard Richter: Forty Years of Painting - by Robert Storr, The Museum of Modern Art, New York (February 15, 2002)
• Gerhard Richter: Doubt and Belief in Painting - by Gerhard Richter, Robert Storr, Museum of Modern Art (June 2003)
• The Daily Practice of Painting: Writings 1962-1993 - by Gerhard Richter, Hans-Ulrich Obrist, David Britt, The MIT Press; Reprint edition (December 5, 1995)
• Gerhard Richter: Editions 1965-2004, Catalogue Raisonne - by Gerhard Richter, Hubertus Butin, Stefan Gronert, Hatje Cantz Publishers (September 15, 2004)

Quick Facts

• Gerhard Richter is a prominent German artist.
• Richter is considered by some critics as one of the most important German artists of the post-World War II period and is also one of the world's most expensive, with his paintings often selling for several million dollars apiece.
• Richter had his first solo show, Gerhard Richter, in 1964 at Galerie Schmela in Dusseldorf.
• The Gerhard Richter Archive was established in cooperation with the artist in 2005 as an institute of the State Art Collections in Dresden, Germany
• Unfortunately, Richter has a tendency to despise the work of his colleagues which betrays his ambiguous relationship to German history as well as an astonishing inability to see into the consequences of his public remarks. In 2005, he urged the citizens of Salzburg to "do something about" a sculpture by his colleague Markus Lupertz in an interview by the SPIEGEL , after describing this work as a sign of the depravation of public art sponsorship in Germany; the sculpture, an homage to Mozart, was promptly attacked by a right-wing art activist from Austria and badly damaged. Richter's extraordinary power to cow art critics into obedience may be illustrated by the fact that no discussion about his public incitement to attack the sculpture took place, nor was the attack widely discussed.
• Many of Richter's paintings are made in a multi-step process of representations. He starts with a photograph, which he has found or taken himself, and projects it onto his canvas, where he traces it for exact form.

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