Lot 113
  • 113

Gerhard Richter

Estimate
200,000 - 300,000 GBP
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Description

  • Gerhard Richter
  • Abstraktes Bild
  • signed, dated II. 76 and numbered 398/5 on the reverse
  • oil on board
  • 29 by 40.7cm.; 11 3/8 by 16in.

Provenance

Ema Richter, Dusseldorf (acquired directly from the artist)
Sale: Sotheby's, London, Contemporary Art, 22 June 2007, Lot 249
Private Collection, South Korea
Sale: Est-Ouest Auctions, Hong Kong, Contemporary Art & Fine Arts, 16 May 2009, Lot 424
Private Collection, Germany
Sale: Ketterer Kunst, Munich, Zeitgenössische Kunst, 4 June 2011, Lot 212
Private Collection, Berlin
Galerie Springer & Winckler, Berlin
Acquired directly from the above by the present owner

Exhibited

Bielefeld, Kunsthalle Bielefeld; Mannheim, Mannheimer Kunstverein, Gerhard Richter: Abstrakte Bilder 1976 bis 1981, 1982, p. 14, illustrated
Winterthur, Kunstmuseum Winterthur, Gerhard Richter: Zeichnungen und Aquarelle, 1999

Literature

Exhibition Catalogue, Dusseldorf, Städtische Kunsthalle Düsseldorf; Berlin, Nationalgalerie Berlin; Bern, Kunsthalle Bern; Vienna, Museum Moderner Kunst / Museum des 20. Jahrhunderts, Gerhard Richter: Bilder/Paintings 1962-1985, 1986, p. 197, illustrated upside down
Angelika Thill et. al., Gerhard Richter, Catalogue Raisonné: 1962-1993, Vol. III, Ostfildern-Ruit 1993, no. 398-5, illustrated in colour
Dieter Schwartz, Gerhard Richter: Drawings 1964-1999, Catalogue Raisonné, Winterthur 1999, p. 22, illustrated
Kristine Bilkau, "Gebot der Stunde. Gerhard Richter, Abstraktes Bild" in Financial Times Deutschland. How To Spend It, 2011, no. 5, p. 36, illustrated in colour
Dietmar Elger, Gerhard Richter: Catalogue Raisonné, Volume 3, Nos. 389 - 651-2, 1976-1987, Ostfildern 2013, p. 68, no. 398-5, illustrated in colour

Condition

Colour: The colours in the catalogue illustration are fairly accurate, although the overall tonality is brighter and more vibrant in the original. Condition: This work is in very good condition. Extremely close inspection reveals a few tiny rubs towards the centre of the upper right quadrant. Further extremely close inspection under bright light reveals a very small area of paint shrinkage towards the upper left corner. No restoration is apparent when examined under ultraviolet light.
"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. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
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Catalogue Note

The First Abstrakte Bilder
An Important work by Gerhard Richter

By the mid-1970s, Gerhard Richter’s reputation as one of the most influential contemporary painters was already well-established. Having developed an artistic language that was increasingly understood as a conceptual approach to the medium, incorporating both photorealist and abstract paintings, the artist was confident in a dazzling variety of painterly styles. However, after more than a decade dedicated to exploring the nature of painting, Richter had become dissatisfied with his recent experiments. Following a series of eight identical grey monochromes for the Städtisches Museum Abteiberg in Mönchengladbach, the artist felt that his explorations into this reductive formalism had reached their logical conclusion: "My paintings became more and more impersonal and general until nothing was left but monochrome gray (...) Then I was totally outside my paintings. But it didn't feel well either. You can't live like that, and therefore I decided to paint the exact opposite" (Gerhard Richter quoted in: Dietmar Elger,  Gerhard Richter, A Life in Painting, Chicago 2002, p. 229).

This conscious departure from the monochromatic grey paintings was to become one of the most fruitful and significant developments in Gerhard Richter’s multi-faceted oeuvre, culminating with the celebrated Abstrakte Bilder of the 1980s and 1990s - and started with the cycle that includes the present work. Painted in 1976, Abstraktes Bild (398-5) followed the large-scale Construction (398), the very first of Richter’s colourful abstract paintings. As the title of the work indicates, Richter felt ambiguous about the overly composed appearance of Construction, leading him to experiment with the five subsequent canvasses in the cycle - amongst which the present work. As the first canvasses to bear the title Abstrakte Bilder, these works were to become the basis for the abstract paintings over the years to come, thus crucially establishing the foundation of Richter’s mature career. Their incredible significance is reflected in their presence at prestigious institutional exhibitions, as various paintings from this first series have been included in exhibitions such as Panorama at the Tate Modern in London and the Centre Pompidou in Paris, and in Gerhard Richter: 40 Years of Painting at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, The Art Institute of Chicago, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Hirschhorn Museum in Washington.

Gerhard Richter’s ambiguous use of the word bilder (images) is particularly significant here, as the early Abstrakte Bilder were the result of a process of carefully pre-meditated compositions, aided by photographs and drawings. Richter’s early work had already consciously attempted to undermine a singular painterly programme, both through his widely varying stylistic approach and his famous use of photographs as source images - and he continued to do so in his early abstract paintings. By mediating the directness of painting through an engaged dialogue with photography and drawing, the artist distanced himself from the gesturalism of expressionist painting and instead treated these works as consciously constructed images. Indeed, the artist’s continuous negotiation between photography and painting has become one of the cornerstones of his practice, giving the present work an incredible art-historical cachet. Richter’s limited output at this time (he only made around 30 paintings a year between 1976 and 1980) makes Abstraktes Bild (398-5) of paramount historical importance as one of the very few, and as one of the earliest, of Richter’s experimentation in colourful abstraction that signalled the height of his creative genius and would become one of the most iconic bodies of work in contemporary painting.