GERHARD RICHTER | 5 DEC. 99 (FIRENZE)

The Artist

Marian Goodman Gallery, New York

Acquired from the above by the present owner

Dietmar Elger, Ed., Gerhard Richter: Firenze, Ostfildern 2001, n.p., illustrated in colour

"Photography has almost no reality; it is almost a hundred per cent picture. And painting always has reality: you can touch the paint; it has presence; but it always yields a picture – no matter whether good or bad. That's all the theory. It's no good. I once took some small photographs and then smeared them with paint. That partly resolved the problem, and it's really good – better than anything I could ever say on the subject."

Gerhard Richter cited in Dietmar Elgar, Ed., Gerhard Richter - Text: Writings, Interviews, and Letters 1961-2007, London 2009, p. 273