- 34
Gerhard Richter
Estimate
3,000,000 - 4,000,000 USD
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Description
- Gerhard Richter
- Split
- signed, dated 1989, and numbered 685-2 on the reverse
- oil on canvas
- 44 1/8 x 40 1/8 in. 112 x 102 cm.
Provenance
Sperone Westwater, New York
Acquired by the present owner from the above in 1990
Acquired by the present owner from the above in 1990
Exhibited
New York, Sperone Westwater Gallery, Gerhard Richter: New Paintings, February 1990
Rotterdam, Museum Boymans-van Beuningen, Gerhard Richter 1988-89, October – December 1989, n.p., illustrated in color
Rotterdam, Museum Boymans-van Beuningen, Gerhard Richter 1988-89, October – December 1989, n.p., illustrated in color
Literature
Angelika Thill, et al., Gerhard Richter: A Catalogue Raisonné 1962-1993, vol. III, Ostfildern-Ruit, 1993, cat. no. 685-2, illustrated in color
Condition
This painting is in excellent condition. Very close inspection under raking light reveals a minute and very faint accretion speck 2 inches from the top and 10 inches from the left edges, and a very small number of extremely thin hairline drying cracks, which are inherent to the medium and artist's method and from the time of execution. Under UV, there are no apparent restorations. The canvas is not framed.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.
Catalogue Note
"Chance is given; unpredictable; chaotic; the basis. And we try to control that by intervening, giving form to chance, putting it to use"
Gerhard Richter, Exh. Cat., London, Tate Modern, Gerhard Richter: Panorama, 2011, p. 27
Comprising a graphically powerful schema of coarse variegated paint texture and a streaming vertical striation, Split is a particularly intense archetype of Gerhard Richter’s revered corpus of abstraction. This virtuoso painting essays an elegant dissipation of tonal polarity, resulting in a heightened emphasis on the partially revealed accents of colored hues, from subtly deep magenta to earthy ochers. The masterful balance between sensitive tonality and sharp contrast makes this work an exceptionally compelling and exquisite exemplar of Richter's production. Executed in 1989, at the very crescendo of innovation in Richter's ground-breaking abstract painting technique, this work further encapsulates his conceptual inquiry into the fundamental objectives of painting.
Contained within the graphic corrugation of a sweeping painterly stroke, Richter's mercurial production is here brought full-circle: the dramatic yet measured profusion of black, white and the incumbent variegation of greyscale casts an allusion back to the Photo Paintings that first brought the artist critical acclaim in the early 1960s. Indeed, formally reversing the central conceit of the monumental cycle of Curtains executed in 1965, where these photo-realist works hover on the verge of abstraction, Richter's Split subtly evokes the photographic medium. Moreover, in closer alignment to the early corpus of Curtains, while formally mirroring the vertical folds of Richter's blurred photographic translation, the sweeping white of the squeegee concurrently conceals and provides an intimation of that which lies beyond and behind the veil: "Almost all the abstract paintings show scenarios, surroundings and landscapes that don't exist, but they create the impression that they could exist. As though they were photographs of scenarios and regions that had never yet been seen." (Gerhard Richter in Exh. Cat., London, Tate Modern, Gerhard Richter: Panorama, 2011, p. 19) Inherent within the two-dimensional picture-plane of both works, the notion of the curtain provides a somewhat ironical comment on the notion of painting as illusion. Nonetheless, where the blurred photo-realism suspends our understanding and thwarts our perception of the curtain itself, the abstract allusion to something existing beyond the layers of chromatic expanse is thwarted by Richter's self-conscious and critical challenge to the history of abstraction: a practice intellectually suspended between the scientific and expressive conceptions of the painterly process. Aligned to Richter's greater artistic enterprise which since the early 1960s has scrutinized the role of paint within a media-saturated culture, these works explore the possibility of abstract painting through the emotional detachment of visual and mechanical arbitration.
The abstract works represent the most demanding feat of Richter's craft; described by the artist as "complicated, messy, a bit of a battle", these works embody the terminus of Richter's life-long interrogation of the limits of painting (Ibid., p. 16). As expounded by Stefan Germer, any deliberation of Richter's abstract work is bound to a discussion of the artist's innovative painterly method (Stefan Germer, Exh. Cat., London, Tate Gallery, Gerhard Richter, 1991, p. 30). Disparate to working from a photographic model, Richter's deferral of quantifiable and predictable control requires a ritualistic and ordered process of preparation: "mixing the colours, finding the right hues, the smell, all these things foster an illusion that this is going to be a wonderful painting" (Ibid.). A number of primed white canvases are installed on the walls of the artist's studio, onto which Richter often works simultaneously, moving from one painting to another and back again. Over a protracted period of execution the works undergo multiple variations. Performed to sublime effect in the present work, each new sweeping accretion of paint brings color and textural juxtapositions that are reworked until an optimum painterly threshold is achieved. Within this process, grounds of arresting pigment are applied only to be effaced and drawn out by large track-like strokes of a hard-edged spatula-like squeegee. Unpredictable and ostensibly spontaneous in their lyrical grandeur, these overlaid marks are in fact carefully premeditated and cerebrally labored.
The attainment of compositional resolution within the thick impasto and atmospheric enshrouding of paint is realized in the stand-off between controlled action and the reaction of chance. The painting itself reaches a point whereby Richter's own intentions have been alienated and overcome by the autonomy of the work itself: "Letting a thing come, rather than creating it – no assertions, constructions, formulations, inventions, ideologies – in order to gain access to all that is genuine, richer, more alive: to what is beyond my understanding." (Gerhard Richter, 'Notes 1985' in Hans-Ulrich Obrist, Ed., Gerhard Richter: The Daily Practice of Painting, Writings 1962-1993, London 1993, p. 119) Within the tonally rich, graphically dramatic and conceptually multifaceted strata of Split, the simultaneous negation and affirmation of contingency, expressivity, detachment, and transcendence comprises an encompassing host of contradictions that posit this work as a spectacularly loaded arena of calculated chaos and a paradigm of Gerhard Richter's mature artistic and philosophical achievement.
Gerhard Richter, Exh. Cat., London, Tate Modern, Gerhard Richter: Panorama, 2011, p. 27
Comprising a graphically powerful schema of coarse variegated paint texture and a streaming vertical striation, Split is a particularly intense archetype of Gerhard Richter’s revered corpus of abstraction. This virtuoso painting essays an elegant dissipation of tonal polarity, resulting in a heightened emphasis on the partially revealed accents of colored hues, from subtly deep magenta to earthy ochers. The masterful balance between sensitive tonality and sharp contrast makes this work an exceptionally compelling and exquisite exemplar of Richter's production. Executed in 1989, at the very crescendo of innovation in Richter's ground-breaking abstract painting technique, this work further encapsulates his conceptual inquiry into the fundamental objectives of painting.
Contained within the graphic corrugation of a sweeping painterly stroke, Richter's mercurial production is here brought full-circle: the dramatic yet measured profusion of black, white and the incumbent variegation of greyscale casts an allusion back to the Photo Paintings that first brought the artist critical acclaim in the early 1960s. Indeed, formally reversing the central conceit of the monumental cycle of Curtains executed in 1965, where these photo-realist works hover on the verge of abstraction, Richter's Split subtly evokes the photographic medium. Moreover, in closer alignment to the early corpus of Curtains, while formally mirroring the vertical folds of Richter's blurred photographic translation, the sweeping white of the squeegee concurrently conceals and provides an intimation of that which lies beyond and behind the veil: "Almost all the abstract paintings show scenarios, surroundings and landscapes that don't exist, but they create the impression that they could exist. As though they were photographs of scenarios and regions that had never yet been seen." (Gerhard Richter in Exh. Cat., London, Tate Modern, Gerhard Richter: Panorama, 2011, p. 19) Inherent within the two-dimensional picture-plane of both works, the notion of the curtain provides a somewhat ironical comment on the notion of painting as illusion. Nonetheless, where the blurred photo-realism suspends our understanding and thwarts our perception of the curtain itself, the abstract allusion to something existing beyond the layers of chromatic expanse is thwarted by Richter's self-conscious and critical challenge to the history of abstraction: a practice intellectually suspended between the scientific and expressive conceptions of the painterly process. Aligned to Richter's greater artistic enterprise which since the early 1960s has scrutinized the role of paint within a media-saturated culture, these works explore the possibility of abstract painting through the emotional detachment of visual and mechanical arbitration.
The abstract works represent the most demanding feat of Richter's craft; described by the artist as "complicated, messy, a bit of a battle", these works embody the terminus of Richter's life-long interrogation of the limits of painting (Ibid., p. 16). As expounded by Stefan Germer, any deliberation of Richter's abstract work is bound to a discussion of the artist's innovative painterly method (Stefan Germer, Exh. Cat., London, Tate Gallery, Gerhard Richter, 1991, p. 30). Disparate to working from a photographic model, Richter's deferral of quantifiable and predictable control requires a ritualistic and ordered process of preparation: "mixing the colours, finding the right hues, the smell, all these things foster an illusion that this is going to be a wonderful painting" (Ibid.). A number of primed white canvases are installed on the walls of the artist's studio, onto which Richter often works simultaneously, moving from one painting to another and back again. Over a protracted period of execution the works undergo multiple variations. Performed to sublime effect in the present work, each new sweeping accretion of paint brings color and textural juxtapositions that are reworked until an optimum painterly threshold is achieved. Within this process, grounds of arresting pigment are applied only to be effaced and drawn out by large track-like strokes of a hard-edged spatula-like squeegee. Unpredictable and ostensibly spontaneous in their lyrical grandeur, these overlaid marks are in fact carefully premeditated and cerebrally labored.
The attainment of compositional resolution within the thick impasto and atmospheric enshrouding of paint is realized in the stand-off between controlled action and the reaction of chance. The painting itself reaches a point whereby Richter's own intentions have been alienated and overcome by the autonomy of the work itself: "Letting a thing come, rather than creating it – no assertions, constructions, formulations, inventions, ideologies – in order to gain access to all that is genuine, richer, more alive: to what is beyond my understanding." (Gerhard Richter, 'Notes 1985' in Hans-Ulrich Obrist, Ed., Gerhard Richter: The Daily Practice of Painting, Writings 1962-1993, London 1993, p. 119) Within the tonally rich, graphically dramatic and conceptually multifaceted strata of Split, the simultaneous negation and affirmation of contingency, expressivity, detachment, and transcendence comprises an encompassing host of contradictions that posit this work as a spectacularly loaded arena of calculated chaos and a paradigm of Gerhard Richter's mature artistic and philosophical achievement.