Gerhard Richter

Private Collection (acquired directly from the artist)
Sale: Sotheby's, London, Contemporary Art, 25 October 2005, Lot 153
Acquired directly from the above by the present owner

Angelikca Thill et al., Gerhard Richter Catalogue Raisonné, 1962-1993, Vol. III, Ostfildern-Ruit 1993, no. 675-6, illustrated in colour (numbered incorrectly)

Colour: The colours in the catalogue illustration are fairly accurate, although the illustration fails to fully convey the rich surface texture apparent in the original. Condition: This work is in very good condition. No restoration is apparent when examined under ultra-violet light.
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NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

Executed in 1988, Abstraktes Bild magnificently distils Gerhard Richter’s techniques and concerns of the 1980s, a time of immense creativity and innovation for the artist. The colours saturate the canvas with an almost psychedelic intensity; strokes of acid yellow, kingfisher blue and deep crimson unite in a stunning array of jewel-like pigments.  The exuberant layering of colours bears comparison with the earliest abstract paintings of Wassily Kandinsky, seen in works such as Composition VII (1914). Richter believed, as had Kandinsky, that non-objective painting urged the viewer to look past earthly concerns to the metaphysical and spiritual beyond. As Richter stated in the year in which the current lot was painted: ‘Abstract paintings… visualise a reality, which we can neither see nor describe, but which we may nevertheless conclude exists. We attach negative names to this reality; the un-known, the un-graspable, the infinite… With abstract painting we create a better means of approaching what can be neither seen nor understood.’ (Exhibition Catalogue, Chicago, Museum of Contemporary Art, Gerhard Richter: Paintings, 1988, p.107).  Abstraktes Bild can be seen as abstraction in its very purest form; with no recognisable objects depicted, the onlooker is forced to rely on the power of imagination, an experience which ensures a uniquely personal response to this painting.

Abstraktes Bild is characteristic of the time when Richter made use of the squeegee as his preferred method of applying paint to the canvas, a technique that conceals any trace of the individual brushstroke. The use of the squeegee enables the artist to place the composition almost uniquely in the hands of chance; in effect, Richter wanted the process of creating these abstract paintings to develop its own momentum, surprising him in the directions that it might lead. As the artist declared in 1985: ‘When I paint an abstract picture… I neither know in advance what it is meant to look like nor, during the painting process, what I am aiming at and what to do about getting there…. Viewed in this light, anything is possible in my pictures…’ (Dietmar Elger & Hans Ulrich Obrist eds., Gerhard Richter – Texts, Writings, Interviews and Letters 1961-2007, London 2009, p. 142). Ultimately, Abstraktes Bild is an expression of artistic exuberance and joy, as well as epitomising the extraordinary achievements of Richter’s mature abstraction.