Gerhard Richter

Anthony d'Offay Gallery, London
Wako Works of Art, Tokyo
Private Collection, Zurich (acquired from the above) 
Alesco AG, Zurich
Galerie Springer & Winckler, Berlin 
Private Collection, Germany 
Sotheby's, London, 22 June 2007, Lot 231
Acquired from the above sale by the present owner

Tokyo, Wako Works of Art, Gerhard Richter, October - November 1997, p. 9, illustrated in color

Exh. Cat, London, Anthony d'Offay Gallery, Gerhard Richter 1998 with a Catalogue Raisonné of Paintings from 1993-1998, 1998, no. 840-6, illustrated in color
Armin Kruszynski and Anette Kruszynski, Eds., Gerhard Richter, Catalogue Raisonné: 1994-2004, Dusseldorf 2005, cat no. 840-6, illustrated in color

This work is in excellent condition overall. There is minor wear and handling to the edges and corners of the aluminum panel. Under very close inspection, there is a pinpoint loss at the center top edge and another approximately 4 inches from the bottom edge and 10 inches from left edge, inherent to the artist's working method. Along the bottom edge, approximately 2 inches from the right corner, there is a gap in the paint application, measuring ¼ of an inch, again inherent to the artist's working method. Under Ultraviolet light inspection, there is no evidence of restoration. Unframed.
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.

Gerhard Richter’s Abstraktes Bild is a synthesis of innovative technical development and uninhibited pictorial experimentation. Painted in 1996, the present work was executed as the artist was expanding his material arsenal, moving from the use of canvas supports to an aluminum composite substrate. This metal underlayer allowed Richter to more fully engage his exploration of the optical qualities of paint by minimizing the aesthetic interference of textured canvas. In allowing paint application and chance to fully dictate the appearance of his work, Abstraktes Bild approaches a Platonic ideal in Richter’s career spanning investigation into the relationship between painting and perception. The present work is a product of Richter’s regimented process and meticulous planning, combined with his acceptance and invitation of entropy and chance. The substrate is slathered with oil slick streaks of violet, forest green, and turquoise, which subsume each other and dissolve under fields of white.  These passages are scraped through with inflections of vibrant orange, black, and cherry red. The work undergoes a near-constant process of revealing and concealing, melting into itself before switching directionality and becoming solid again. Each passage and accumulation of pigment defies conventional color relationships and forges a sense of depth and recession in space that counters the typical flatness endemic to abstraction.

Richter’s paint application straddles the border of traditional gesture, dually recalling the smoothness of industrial process and the harnessed emotive force of Abstract Expressionism. The present work engages with the legacy of painting and representation, and is contextualized in part by the development of Richter’s oeuvre. Richter’s painting has consistently engaged in a critical dialogue with the legibility of images and the hierarchies endemic to different styles and approaches. Beginning with the artist’s early photo-paintings, and extending through his orderly and regimented color charts and multifarious grey paintings, Richter has made a concerted effort to explore all facets of representation. In developing his Abstrakte Bilder, Richter sought to create work that defied standard painterly principles, with each becoming singular and irreproducible. To achieve this effect, Richter drags malleable, semi-liquid pigment across the aluminum substrate using a squeegee, creating a base layer that he later manipulates by applying successive layers of pigment. Richter repeats this process, modulating his pressure, pigment, and direction until in the words of the artist, "there is no more that I can do to them, when they exceed me, or they have something that I can no longer keep up with" (the artist in Exh. Cat., Museum of Contemporary Art, Gerhard Richter: Paintings, Chicago 1988, p. 108).

Richter mixes this laborious process with an element of randomness, inviting chance and chaos into his composition to make each work truly unique. As the artist explains, "I want to end up with a picture that I haven't planned. This method of arbitrary choice, chance, inspiration and destruction may produce a specific type of picture, but it never produces a predetermined picture... I just want to get something more interesting out of it than those things I can think out for myself" (the artist in Eds. Hubertus Butin and Stefan Gronert, Gerhard Richter. Editions 1965-2004: Catalogue Raisonné, Ostfildern-Ruit 2004, p. 36). Richter plans for chance, fastidiously moving his squeegee across the canvas and then relinquishing control to the paint, allowing it to behave on its own without his interference. Invoking natural process, particularly concepts of growth and erosion, Gerhard Richter’s Abstraktes Bild is a marriage of systematized conceptual vision and abstraction, culminating in an artistic ideal that can only be accessed through letting go of control and channeling the supremacy of paint.