Gerhard Richter

Private Collection, Germany (acquired directly from the artist in 1972)
Sotheby's, New York, May 4, 1994, lot 58
Private Collection, Lugano
Mark Moore Gallery, Santa Monica

Düsseldorf, Grabbeplatz Kunsthalle, Gerhard Richter: Works from 1962-1971, June-August 1971, cat. no. 267, illustrated in color
Zurich, Kunsthaus, Malerei und Photographie im Dialog, May - July 1977 
New York, Luhring Augustine, Gerhard Richter: selected works 1963-1987, November 1995 - January 1996, p. 52, illustrated in color

Klaus Honnef, "Gerhard Richter im Kunstverein Düsseldorf", Magazin Kunst, no. 43, 1971, p. S2409, illustrated in color
Dieter Honisch, ``Gerhard Richter: Paintings 1962-1985'' in Exh. Cat., Venice, XXXVI Esposizione Internationale d'Art - La Bienale di Venezia, 1972, cat. no. 267, p. 73, illustrated
Jürgen Harten, ed., Gerhard Richter: Paintings 1962-1985, Cologne, 1986, cat. no. 267, p. 119, illustrated in color
Angelika Thill, et. al., Gerhard Richter: Catalogue Raisonné 1962-1993, Volume III , Osterfildern-Ruit, 1993, cat. no. 267, p. 161, illustrated in color

The mood of Gerhard Richter's work, Wolken (Rosa), with its grand scale and glowing colors, is unmistakably one of romantic nostalgia. Painted in 1970, it consists of three enveloping panels depicting a sky of pale pink and gray clouds floating weightlessly into the luminous void. In 1973, Gerhard Richter declared: "…we haven't yet left Romanticism behind us. The paintings from that period are still part of our sensibility." (as quoted in Irmeline Lebeer, "Gerhard Richter: où, la réalité de l'image", Chronique de l'art vivant, no. 36, February 1973, p. 16). This open appreciation of historic artistic tradition was atypical of a time when artists were pursuing an avant-garde ideology, the driving force of which was the exploration of groundbreaking techniques for producing art.

Instead of sacrificing tradition, Richter utilized it throughout his oeuvre. In doing so, he proved himself to be contemporary in the best possible sense. Twenty years later, the art historian Stefan Germer shed light on this phenomenon when he noted: "Today it is not innovation, but only thinking through history that can justify the possibilities and conditions of artistic creation. Consequently I am interested in works that do not repress this element of doubt but surrender to it and adopt it, make it their theme, or reflect on it in their approach." (Hubertus Butin, et. al., Gerhard Richter: Editions 1965 2004, Ostfildern-Ruit, 2004, p. 10).

In his landscape and cloud paintings, Richter pays deliberate tribute to a portrayal of nature that is the direct descendent of the European Romanticists. This genre reacted against rationalizing nature and put new emphasis on experiencing the sublimity within it. Richter studied in Dresden, the home of one of the most extensive collections of Caspar David Friedrich’s paintings, and not surprisingly, he was greatly influenced by the celebrated German Romanticist, who epitomized this transcendental atmosphere.

Light, which the Romanticists considered the "emanation of God's spirit" is intrinsic to the mood of Friedrich’s Wanderer above the Sea of Fog (ca. 1818). A lone figure, shown from behind, stands on a ledge overlooking an expansive landscape, which is half-hidden by luminous wisps of fog. Friedrich’s pastel colors merge gracefully to blur the border between the mist-enveloped mountains and the sky. The light that crests both the vapor from below and the clouds above shows an almost mystical bond between man and nature.

Similarly, Richter infuses the three panels of his work, Wolken, with a luminosity that creates a comparable atmosphere of interminable vastness and sublime aura. The artist heightens this supernal quality by presenting the work as a triptych, thus lending it a religious aspect.  Though Richter owes a direct debt to the Romantic ideal of the 19th century, he admits lacking "[…] the spiritual foundation that supported Romantic painting. We have lost the feeling of 'God’s omni-presence in nature'." (Ibid., p. 71) As is the case throughout his complex oeuvre, Richter’s work is less about the reproduction of nature or the realist illusion of art, but about the history of art and the role of painting and photography in present times.

Richter has been experimenting with photography since the 1960s and in 1964 he began to assemble the source photos that he would later draw on for most of his paintings. Known as Atlas, they included newspaper cutouts, existing family portraits as well as his own photographs of landscapes. Out of the hundreds of photos in Atlas, he only chose a few from which he painted. In comparing the art of photography to the medium of painting, Richter believed that a photograph captured only a split second in time, while a painting of that same photograph elevated the motif into an art-historical context. This particular medium gives the work its timeless quality.  Wolken (Rosa) is of notable interest for exactly this reason. It not only typifies Richter’s Neo-Romantic Idealism in all its transparent, delicately tinted quality, but also underscores his keen awareness of the elapsing of time and the fleeting moment. In terms of subject matter, what better example of transience could Richter have chosen than the depiction of clouds in the sky?