Gerhard Richter

Graphisches Kabinett Wolfgang Werner, Bremen
Acquired directly from the above by the present owner in the early 1970s

Wuppertal, Galerie Parnass, Lueg, Polke, Richter, 1964
Berlin, Galerie René Block, Gerhard Richter, 1964
Düsseldorf, Kunstverein für die Rheinlande und Westfalen, Gerhard Richter Arbeiten 1962-1971, 1971
Bonn, Städtisches Kunstmuseum, Vier Perioden Deutscher Malerei, 1984 
Aschaffenburg, Jesuiten Kirche, Galerie der Stadt Aschaffenburg, Deutsche Kunst nach 1945 aus dem Ludwig Forum und anderen Sammlungen, 1995, p. 70, illustrated 

Exhibition Catalogue, Venice, XXXVI Biennale Internazionale dell'Arte (Gerhard Richter), 1972, p. 37, no. 25
Dierk Stemmler, "Universale Malerei des Unerklärlichen wegen. Gerhard Richter", in: Exhibition Catalogue, Bonn, Städtisches Kunstmuseum, Sammlung Deutscher Kunst seit 1945, 1984, p. 643, illustrated
Jürgen Harten, Gerhard RIchter: Paintings 1962-1985, Cologne 1986, p. 14, no. 25, incorrectly illustrated
Angelika Thill, et. al., Gerhard Richter Catalogue Raisonné, 1962-1993, Vol. III, Ostfildern-Ruit 1993, no. 25, illustrated

With her slender figure momentarily captured against the stark background, her head shyly tilted to one side and her uninhibited smile beaming for the camera, Gerhard Richter's Helen captures a serene moment of discreet feminine beauty and domestic stability. Richter has here transformed a found amateur photograph of a smiling, elegantly dressed young lady - whom the artist probably never even met - into an intensely personal and poetic image. If American Pop Art of the 1960s was characterised by a celebration of the power of celebrity in a rich Post-War consumer society, in Germany, Gerhard Richter was at the heart of a new strand of Pop Art which was celebrating the local heroes of society. Richter's ground-breaking series of Photo-paintings were borrowing amateur snapshots and local press cuttings depicting those who were helping to re-construct the basic aspects of society and re-presenting these as the celebrities of high art. Central to this group of works were a whole cast of women on whose shoulders rested the re-building of a new German sense of society, from the mothers and housewives who were re-uniting their families, to the daughters, relatives, sports women, secretaries and even prostitutes, Richter was paying homage to local German women (see fig. 1). With her delicate form masterfully emerging from the thick density of feathered brushstrokes in a striking array of subtle tones, Helen stands as one of the most beautiful and memorable images from this group, an icon of virtuous domesticity.

During the 1960’s, Post-War Germany was undergoing a sense of localised regeneration and tentative stability that was immortalised through Richter’s early photo-realist works. At the time these works were ground-breaking in their concept and outstanding in their sheer execution. Whilst Warhol was extolling the virtues of the silkscreen printing process, every single one of Richter's canvases was, and still is, created with his own hand. Richter’s best work from this period exudes a sense of cautious optimism, in which one can sense the artist’s respect and admiration for his subjects. Nowhere is this more clearly evident than in his small group of canvases paying tribute to local German women (see fig,. 1). His interest in painting women began with his very first Photo-painting, of Bridget Bardot, in 1961. Following on from that in 1964, the same year as the present work, he wrote in his journal: "I prefer the 'naive' photograph, with a simple uncomplicated composition. That's why I like the Mona Lisa so much; there's nothing to her" (Gerhard Richter, The Daily Practice of Painting, Massachusetts 1995, p.23). Thus, it appears that the depiction of the female subject was very much in his thinking at this time and, one could say, inspiring his vision. Apart from Helen, works such as Sekretärin and Frau Niepenberg show Richter building up these photo-realist images of his subjects and then lovingly caressing his brush across the painting to create his now quintessential 'blurring' effect. In this moment of blurring, lies the conceptual crux, for it is here that Richter, despite the subtle beauty of his subjects, achieves his moment of emotionless objectivity.

Richter’s technique of appropriation has its origins in the concept of the 'Ready-Made', the term which was made famous by Marcel Duchamp around 1915, with his re-presentation of existing objects and images as his own art. However, it was not until the Pop artists began to borrow images from mass culture in the mid 1960s that this concept found its full visual potential. Artists such as Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein, who are frequently cited as being two of Richter’s most important influences, found that in an image obsessed culture, the meanings of the mass-produced signs which surrounded us could be fundamentally altered by their re-presentation as art. Richter however, was not concerned with the mass-produced images of advertising and entertainment, but rather with anonymous, everyday images and portraits taken from newspapers, magazines, and family albums, providing him with a vast supply of amateur and documentary photographs. When compared to the iconic images of celebrity chosen by Warhol such as Marilyn and Liz, Richter’s work illuminates the significant cultural divide existing between America and Europe during this period.

When considering what criteria dictated the careful selection of photographic sources, Richter noted in his journal, “Composition is a side issue…by which I mean that the fascination of a photograph is not in its eccentric composition but in what it has to say: its information content … When I paint from a photograph, this is part of the work process. It is never a defining characteristic of the vision: that is I am not replacing reality with a reproduction of it, a ‘Second-Hand World’.  I use photography to make a painting just as Rembrandt uses drawing or Vermeer, the camera obscura.” (Gerhard Richter, Ibid, ps. 22-24). The blurring effect so prominently displayed in Helen is characteristic of Richter’s best work from this period, and serves as a metaphor for the artist’s own ambivalence towards painting. Compared to many works of this period, Helen is densely textured and, up close, the surface and contrast of tone provide an abstract quality to the work, which can allow one to get lost in the material quality of the paint - a fact which predicts his future development as a painter of many styles. It also simultaneously liberated Richter to erase the quality and power of the chosen images. “I blur things to make everything equally important and equally unimportant,” claimed the artist, “so that they do not look artistic or craftsmanlike but technological, smooth and perfect.”  (Gerhard Richter, The Daily Practice of Painting, Massachusetts 1995, p. 37) Effectively sapping the images of their original aesthetic qualities and emphatically removing them from the realm of the representational, Richter conjures up the fleeting impression of a snapshot, suited to the photographic nature of its source and inspiration.

Using only two colours, ‘Titanweis’ (Titanium white) and ‘Elfenbeinschwarz’ (Ebony black), it is the thickness and fluency of the paint and the marriage of these characteristics to the image which set Helen aside from many of Richter's other works from this period. Within the high contrast tonality of this picture of feminine fragility, he has left the ghost of the passing brushstroke. Gently applied, in an extremely fluent repeated horizontal movement, Richter infuses this near photo-realist image with a regular reminder of the presence and imperfection of the hand. Thus the painting exists on several very different levels. Up close, one gets lost in the material beauty of the paint and the abstraction of the blurred image, but as one draws away from the painting this glowing picture, Helen's beaming smile lures us with her sheer unadulterated joy.