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Lot Essay
‘A floor full of very colourful paintings – paint, like a first in your eye, finger thick and criss-crossing everywhere, shouting and garish, as if there really were a new spirit in painting. But everything is only half as wild; with Gerhard Richter it only appears that way, it is not at all what is meant. Even now his painting is neither sloppy nor of the unreflective subjectivity like that which is circulated abroad today as “new German chic”. Richter’s chaos is calculated.’
(P.M. Pickhaus, ‘Gerhard Richter. Abstrakte Bilder 1976-1981’, in Kunstforum International, April/May 1982, p. 220).
Situated at the dawn of Richter’s large scale free abstractions, the work departs from the artist’s previous reliance upon
sketches and source imagery within his series of Abstraktes Bilder. Embellished with rich streaks of thick impasto, the work’s fearless dynamism is complemented by its bold, brilliant palette. Inaugurating a new, definitive era within Richter’s practice, the work was exhibited the year after its creation at the Kunsthalle Bielefeld, and as part of the artist’s first major touring retrospective at the Städische Kunsthalle, Düsseldorf, in 1986.
Painted in 1981, Abstraktes Bild is an early and vibrant example of Gerhard Richter’s investigations into abstraction and the formal possibilities of painting. Richter’s Abstraktes Bilder represent one of the most significant and extensive strands of his practice, spanning multiple decades and witnessing a great deal of technical innovation. Beginning in 1976, Richter’s initial abstract output encompassed a series of small-scale works: raw, spontaneous fragments that the artist referred to as ‘sketches’. However, the artist struggled to translate these gestures onto the larger scale he desired, relying heavily on slide projections and photographs of the sketches to guide his hand.
In its composition, size and date of execution, this 1981 Abstraktes Bild exemplifies the power of Richter’s art and the command the artist has of his medium. The intricacy and delicacy of this particular work shines through the abundant layers of skillfully applied paint to make the surface come alive with both aesthetic and intellectual resonance. Richter’s tussles with the formal nature of the differences between abstraction and figuration manifest themselves on the surface of this work with dramatic effect. With his planes of flat color interspersed with palpable strokes of bright color, the artist teases us, pulling our understanding one way, then the other. This paradox lies at the very heart of Richter’s work and makes him undoubtedly one of the most exciting and influential painters working today. In his hands, the medium of paint has been rejuvenated and Richter has taken the lead in ensuring that it remains at the forefront of artistic expression.
(P.M. Pickhaus, ‘Gerhard Richter. Abstrakte Bilder 1976-1981’, in Kunstforum International, April/May 1982, p. 220).
Situated at the dawn of Richter’s large scale free abstractions, the work departs from the artist’s previous reliance upon
sketches and source imagery within his series of Abstraktes Bilder. Embellished with rich streaks of thick impasto, the work’s fearless dynamism is complemented by its bold, brilliant palette. Inaugurating a new, definitive era within Richter’s practice, the work was exhibited the year after its creation at the Kunsthalle Bielefeld, and as part of the artist’s first major touring retrospective at the Städische Kunsthalle, Düsseldorf, in 1986.
Painted in 1981, Abstraktes Bild is an early and vibrant example of Gerhard Richter’s investigations into abstraction and the formal possibilities of painting. Richter’s Abstraktes Bilder represent one of the most significant and extensive strands of his practice, spanning multiple decades and witnessing a great deal of technical innovation. Beginning in 1976, Richter’s initial abstract output encompassed a series of small-scale works: raw, spontaneous fragments that the artist referred to as ‘sketches’. However, the artist struggled to translate these gestures onto the larger scale he desired, relying heavily on slide projections and photographs of the sketches to guide his hand.
In its composition, size and date of execution, this 1981 Abstraktes Bild exemplifies the power of Richter’s art and the command the artist has of his medium. The intricacy and delicacy of this particular work shines through the abundant layers of skillfully applied paint to make the surface come alive with both aesthetic and intellectual resonance. Richter’s tussles with the formal nature of the differences between abstraction and figuration manifest themselves on the surface of this work with dramatic effect. With his planes of flat color interspersed with palpable strokes of bright color, the artist teases us, pulling our understanding one way, then the other. This paradox lies at the very heart of Richter’s work and makes him undoubtedly one of the most exciting and influential painters working today. In his hands, the medium of paint has been rejuvenated and Richter has taken the lead in ensuring that it remains at the forefront of artistic expression.