Gerhard Richter

Anthony d'Offay Gallery, London
Private Collection, Baltimore
Sale: Sotheby's, New York, Contemporary Art, 13 May 2009, Lot 146
Acquired directly from the above by the present owner

Angelika Thill, et. al., Gerhard Richter Catalogue Raisonné: 1962-1993, Vol. III, Ostfildern-Ruit, 1993, no. 777-2, illustrated in colour

Colour: The colours in the catalogue illustration are fairly accurate. Condition: This work is in very good condition. Upon extremely close inspection, there is a minute speck of loss on the top extreme edge towards the top left corner. No restoration is apparent when examined under ultra-violet light.
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The rich, buttery smears of Gerhard Richter’s Abstraktes Bild (777-2) pulsate in a rhythmic grid, highlighting the kaleidoscopic hues ranging from stark white to deep red and mossy green. The bold and vivid colors undulate in a lattice formation under the smooth, almost shimmering surface. The controlled vertical and horizontal striations of the present work clearly show Richter’s mastery of the squeegee technique at this point in his career.

 

The 1992 canvas was painted at the apex of Gerhard Richter’s career: the same year as he showed collection of his abstract paintings at Documenta IX in Kassel, Germany, the year after a dedicated exhibition of his work at the Tate Gallery, and a year before Richter’s first touring retrospective exhibition. Facing a newfound celebrity, Richter approached his canvases of this era with a renewed confidence and prowess in his squeegee technique, yet still regarded his oeuvre with a self-critical eye, always harshly judging each work.

 

In 1992, Richter began a thorough exploration of gridded compositions in his abstract paintings, ranging in size and color. These grids seem to recall his Colour Chart paintings from the 1970s, which displayed a myriad of color samples in grids of varying size. Richter’s grids also pay homage to Modern master Piet Mondrian’s radically abstract geometric paintings. In Mondrian’s stylistic explorations of the early 20^th century, he ultimately found the purest form of abstraction to be the grid. Mondrian harnessed blocks of primary color inside of the intersecting vertical and horizontal lines on rectangular or rhomboidal canvases. In 1998, Richter looked to Mondrian’s diamond-shaped canvases in the Abstraktes Bild (851) series of six works, now in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts Houston. Though Richter closely studied his predecessor’s aesthetic, Mondrian’s exact, meticulous and minimalist aesthetic stands in stark contrast to Richter’s giant, energetic smears of vibrant colour.

 

Two decades after the Colour Chart paintings, while fully entrenched in his abstract aesthetic, Richter returns to his earlier color exploration. What renders the latticework of the 1992 abstraktes bilder unique from the Colour Charts is Richter’s relinquishing of a precise, detail-oriented technique with total control. Although Richter demonstrated acute skill and dexterity with his squeegee in 1992, the method is constantly subject to slippages, creating unplanned mistakes in the final canvas. In an interview with Sabine Schütz, Richter confesses, “I want to end up with a picture 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 quoted in: Gerhard Richter: Text, Writings, Interviews and Letters 1961-2007, 2009, p. 256)

 

Indeed, Richter’s final composition ultimately ends up surprising him. Richter begins his process by placing white, primed canvases around his studio, attacking each one with squeegee strokes, layering them until he decides the work is finished. Often Richter leaves a work hanging in his studio, only to decide days or weeks later that the work must be revisited or that the work is finished. Richter describes his process: “Over time, they change. In the end, you become like a chess player. It takes me longer than some people to recognize their quality, their situation – to realize when they are finished. Finally, one day I enter the room and say ‘checkmate’”(the artist quoted in: Michael Kimmelman, "Gerhard Richter: An Artist Beyond Isms," New York Times, January 27, 2002).

 

Though thoroughly and entirely abstract, Richter confesses that his abstraktes bilder are not devoid of figuration. Indeed, Richter believes that even his most abstract works may reference the visual world. “Almost all the abstract paintings show scenarios, surroundings and landscapes that don’t exist., but they could create the impression that they could exist. As though they were photographs of scenarios and regions that have never been seen” (the artist quoted in: Exhibition Catalogue, London, Tate Modern, Gerhard Richter: Panorama, 2011, p. 19). Upon close inspection, forms appear to emerge from the present work: perhaps trees, windows, or skyscrapers, all seen in a blur of motion or even memory. This blurred effect makes reference to Richter’s photo-based painting style that he has weaved throughout his entire career. Subsequently, Abstraktes Bild (777-2) references Richter’s diverse aesthetic and range of styles from his earlier oeuvre in a beautiful amalgamation of colours, textures and lines.