Gerhard Richter

Konrad Fischer Galerie, Düsseldorf
Liliane & Michel Durand-Dessert,  Paris
Private Collection, USA (acquired directly from the above in 1988)
Thence by descent

Düsseldorf, Konrad Fischer Galerie, Gerhard Richter, 1983
Saint-Etienne, Musée d'Art et d'Industrie, Gerhard Richter, 1984

Angelika Thill, et al., Gerhard Richter Catalogue Raisonné 1962 - 1993, Ostfildern-Ruit 1993, Vol III, no. 537, illustrated in colour

Colour: The colours in the catalogue illustration are fairly accurate, although the overall tonality is slightly brighter and more vibrant in the original. The catalogue illustration fails to fully convey the thicker areas of paint apparent in the original. Condition: This work is in very good condition. Upon extremely close inspection, there is fine and stable craquelure in the top right hand corner, along the top edge. No restoration is apparent when examined under ultra-violet light.
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"A picture like this is painted in different layers, separated by intervals of time. The first layer mostly represents the background, which has a photographic, illusionistic look to it, though done without using a photograph. This first, smooth, soft-edged surface is like a finished picture... I partly destroy it, partly add to it... At that stage the whole thing looks very spontaneous, but in between there are long intervals of time. It is a highly planned kind of spontaneity."

 

Gerhard Richter in an interview with Wolfgang Pehnt, Richter – A Life in Painting, 2009, p. 136

 

 

From Minimalism and Constructivism to Abstraction, Richter's painting began to excavate many areas beyond the mere fact of figurative painting in the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s, but it was in the 1980s that he made his boldest breakthroughs in abstraction. Executed on a perfect scale in an extraordinary palette of fertile greens and shadowy blues, Moor is a ground-breaking painting which epitomises Richter's pioneering fluctuation between realist and abstract modes of expression. The title, 'Moor' immediately brings to mind landscape imagery, the composition evocative of the myriad verdant hues observed in nature. By naming the canvas 'Moor', Richter places the work unequivocally within the realm of landscape painting; yet across the picture plane a series of abstract gestures erase any recognisable image which may lie beneath, and replaces it with relative abstraction.   

 

Grounded with a gorgeous wave of indigo giving way to a field of lush greens, one could almost read the lower layer as a hint of structured figurative space. However, over the top, Richter has constructed a series of grand gestures which aggressively disrupt this space. Using a variety of brushes layered with paint, alongside pigment-loaded straight-edged tools, Richter has gradually built the painted surface in layers of intense colour, enlivening the image with vertical strokes of electric blue, roughly hatched daubs of white, hints of cherry red and two thick swathes of black which theatrically interrupt the picture plane. These lively colours and animated brushstrokes simultaneously articulate and disrupt the image, at times seeming to shoot across the canvas.

 

The thick, strident vertical and horizontal marks create a wide and richly textured expanse and energetic array of vivid tones, showing Richter's unique capability and great subtlety with the medium of oil paint. Moving away from the predominant abstract form of the time, Abstract Expressionism, Richter here does not stress the flatness of the space, but rather illuminates its endless possibilities. Through his virtuoso and delicate handling of paint, and the proximity between abstraction and figuration, Richter forces distance between the image and its audience to focus our eye on issues of perception and conception. The almost square format of the canvas, and its bold, sweeping brushstrokes, physically inscribe the presence of the artist in the picture plane. What results from his depiction is an embodiment of Richter's main concern in all his works, in which he questions the entire theory and practice of painting in the contemporary age. Richter has experimented, meshed, and challenged the perceptions of varied artistic approaches, expressing life's temporality and humanity's struggle with memory of the self. Whether examined in isolation or within his diverse oeuvre, Moor provides important insight to our perception and understanding of art.