Gerhard Richter (b. 1932)

Ohne Titel

Details

Gerhard Richter (b. 1932)
Ohne Titel
signed, dated and inscribed 'Studie zu 452 fur Wolfgang Schwartz Richter, 1979' (on the reverse)
oil on canvas
78 3/4 x 59 in. (200 x 150 cm.)
Painted in 1979.

Provenance

Private collection, Germany, acquired directly from the artist
Anon. sale; Sotheby's, New York, 12 November 2002, lot 28
Private collection
Anon. sale; Sotheby's, New York, 27 February 2008, lot 32
Acquired at the above sale by the present owner

Literature

J. Harten, ed., Gerhard Richter: Paintings, 1962-1985, Cologne, 1986, p. 226, no. 452-B (illustrated).
A. Thill, et al., Gerhard Richter: Catalogue Raisonné, 1962-1993, vol. III, Ostfildern-Ruit, 1993, no. 452-B (illustrated in color).

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Lot Essay

"Both Richter and Malevich pursue the idea of a Nature without meaning and without a plan-which is a much more accurate 'image' of the Kunstwollen or underlying impulse of art history than any notion of conscious intention would be. For Malevich, Nature pursues no goal, and neither does Suprematist art. Richter, for his part, has coined the lapidary formulation: 'Nature/Structure'. There is no more to say. In my pictures I reduce to that.' Their paths diverge only in the forms of presentation. Where Malevich draws the analogy between the picture plane and the 'real unity of Nature', Richter lays his emphasis on a process of alternate generation and destruction, in which chance plays a vital role."

(M. Hentschel, Gerhard Richter, exh. cat., London, 1998, p. 17).

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