Gerhard Richter's Atlas is a collection of photographs, newspaper cuttings and sketches that the artist has been assembling since the mid 1960s. A few years later, Richter started to arrange the materials on loose sheets of paper.
"In the beginning I tried to accommodate everything there that was somewhere between art and garbage and that somehow seemed important to me and a pity to throw away."1
At present, Atlas consists of 802 sheets. Spanning a period of almost four decades, the individual sheets reflect different phases of Richter's life and work:
Although Gerhard Richter had already begun collecting photographs and press cuttings, he started working on Atlas started in the early 1970s by arranging his own and other family photographs on paper.
Subsequent to these photographs, he included pictures taken from newspapers and magazines, some of which he used as source images for his 1960s photo paintings [e.g. Sheets: 5–15]. For the group of works 48 Portraits for example, sketches of how to hang the paintings can be found in addition to source images and installation views of the paintings at the Venice Biennale in 1972. [Sheets: 30–41]
Atlas offers insights into Richter's artistic practice and his way of creating imagery. The Atlas sheets allow one to track how first experiments with Holocaust photographs eventually let to Black, Red, Gold, executed in colour-coated glass; the piece was commissioned by the Deutsche Bundestag (German Government) [Sheets: 635–655].
However, photographs taken by the artist himself are the main focus of Atlas. Extensive series of landscapes, still lifes and family photographs were meticulously arranged on the sheets. Some of these photographs were later used as source images for paintings or were included in his artist's books, as can be seen Wald. The Atlas sheets 697–736 even include the complete layout of the artist's book War Cut from 2004.
Gerhard Richter's life and art interrelate in Atlas in a multilayered way: banal subjects such as a toilet roll [Sheet: 14] are juxtaposed with horrifying Holocaust images [Sheets: 16–20]; serial landscape pictures are lined up with intimate family photographs; colour samples attached to source images can be found as well as photographs showing museum installations. On the basis of its complexity and diversity, the importance of Atlas exceeds simple documentation, and Atlas is widely considered as an independent artwork.
Notes prepared by editorial team
1 Interview with Dieter Schwarz, 1999 in: Gerhard Richter: Text. Writings, Interviews and Letters 1961–2007, Thames & Hudson, London, 2009, p. 332
Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus und Kunstbau München, Munich, Germany
This artwork was shown in the following exhibitions:
This artwork is included in the following publications:
| Title | Author | Date | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Double vision | 2023 | ||||
|
The Richter Interviews | Obrist, Hans Ulrich / Richter, Gerhard | 2023 | |||
|
|
Gerhard Richter: Painting after the Subject of History | Buchloh, Benjamin H. D. | 2022 | |||
|
Foucaults Pendel und wir: Anlässlich einer Installation von Gerhard Richter | Hagner, Michael | 2021 | |||
|
Gerhard Richter: Zwei graue Doppelspiegel für ein Pendel in Münster 2018 | Schwarz, Dieter | 2021 | |||
|
Im Atelier Liebermann: Gerhard Richter: Atlas-Übersicht 1:2 | 2020 | ||||
|
|
Gerhard Richter: Painting After All | Wagstaff, Sheena / Buchloh, Benjamin H. D. | 2020 | |||
|
Gerhard Richter: Les cahiers | 2020 | ||||
|
The Richter Interviews | Obrist, Hans Ulrich / Richter, Gerhard | 2019 | |||
|
Von Mougins nach Baden-Baden: Frieder Burda und die Kunst | Schoog, Bernadette | 2019 | |||
|
|
(Dis)Figuration of Memory In, Around, and Beyond Gerhard Richter's Atlas: Between Photography, Abstraction, and the Mnemonic Construction | Mesquita Duarte, Miguel | 2018 | |||
|
Wo Es war. Vier Briefe an Gerhard Richter | Didi-Huberman, Georges | 2018 | |||
|
The Truth is Always Grey. A History of Modernist Painting | Guerin, Frances | 2018 | |||
|
Crisis and Collection. German Visual Memory Archives of the Twentieth Century | McGonagill, Doris | 2015 | |||
|
40 / 10: 40 Jahre Sammlung - 10 Jahre Museum Frieder Burda | Adriani, Götz / Burda, Frieder / Irrgang, Judith / Kugelmann, Anke / Müller, Hans-Joachim / Pehnt, Wolfgang / Schwarz, Katrin | 2014 | |||
|
Gerhard Richter. Ausschnitt. Werke aus der Sammlung Böckmann = Detail. Paintings from the Böckmannn Collection | Kraus, Eva / Nollert, Angelika / Fuchs, Caroline / Heyden, Thomas | 2014 | |||
|
Gerhard Richter: Editions 1965-2013 | Butin, Hubertus / Gronert, Stefan / Olbricht, Thomas | 2014 | |||
|
Gerhard Richter: Editionen 1965-2013 | Butin, Hubertus / Gronert, Stefan / Olbricht, Thomas | 2014 | |||
|
Anywhere or Not at All. Philosophy of Contemporary Art | Osborne, Peter | 2013 | |||
|
|
Tra Cosmologia Privata e Atlante Cultural. Hanne Darboven e Gerhard Richter | Baldacci, Cristina | 2012 | |||
|
Gerhard Richter, Panorama: une rétrospective = a retrospective | Godfrey, Mark / Serota, Nicholas / Brill, Dorothée / Morineau, Camille / Borchardt-Hume, Achim / Dickson, Amy / Haidu, Rachel / Mehring, Christine | 2012 | |||
|
Gerhard Richter: Panorama: Retrospektive | Godfrey, Mark / Serota, Nicholas / Brill, Dorothée / Morineau, Camille / Borchardt-Hume, Achim / Dickson, Amy / Haidu, Rachel / Mehring, Christine | 2012 | |||
|
Gerhard Richter. Bilder einer Epoche | Schneede, Uwe M. / Butin, Hubertus / Elger, Dietmar / Rübel, Dietmar / Westheider, Ortrud | 2011 | |||
|
Gerhard Richter: Panorama: A Retrospective | Godfrey, Mark / Serota, Nicholas / Brill, Dorothée / Morineau, Camille / Borchardt-Hume, Achim / Dickson, Amy / Haidu, Rachel / Mehring, Christine | 2011 | |||
|
Gerhard Richter. Images of an Era | Schneede, Uwe M. / Butin, Hubertus / Elger, Dietmar / Rübel, Dietmar / Westheider, Ortrud | 2011 | |||
|
Il bordo del mondo: La forma sguardo nella pittura di Gerhard Richter | Garbin, Emanuele | 2011 | |||
|
Gerhard Richter. Panorama | Lambrecht, Luk / Leen, Frederik / Storr, Robert | 2008 | |||
|
The Immediate Touch: German, Austrian, Swiss Drawings from Saint Louis Collections | Benjamin, Brent R. / Clark, Robin / Eyerman, Charlotte / Lutz, Eric / Huremovic Schenkenberg, Tamara / Willhauck, Heidi | 2008 | |||
|
Gerhard Richter, Maler | Elger, Dietmar | 2008 | |||
|
Gerhard Richter. Ohne Farbe = Without Color | Spieler, Reinhard / Gelshorn, Julian / Kania, Elke / Krystof, Doris | 2005 | |||
|
Skyggespil. Skygge og lys I samtidskunsten. En hommage til Hans Christian Andersen = Schattenspiel. Schatten und Licht in der zeitgenössischen Kunst. Eine Hommage an Hans Christian Andersen = Shadow Play. Shadow and Light in Contemporary Art. A Homage to Hans Christian Andersen | Casati, Roberto / Johansen, Jørgen Dines / Sadowsky, Thorsten / Wagner, Anselm | 2005 | |||
|
Gerhard Richter: Editions 1965-2004 | 2004 | ||||
|
Gerhard Richter: Editionen 1965-2004 | Butin, Hubertus / Gronert, Stefan | 2004 | |||
|
L'immagine ritrovata: Pittura e fotografia dagli anni ottanta a oggi / The Image Regained: Painting and Photography from the Eighties to Today | Franciollo, Marco / Grazioli, Elio / Schenini, Elio | 2002 | |||
|
Gerhard Richter. Drawings 1964-1999. Catalogue Raisonné | Schwarz, Dieter / Pelzer, Birgit | 2000 | |||
|
Gerhard Richter | Corà, Bruno / Buchloh, Benjamin H. D. / Chevrier, Jean Francois / Moscati, Italo | 1999 | |||
|
Pop Impressions. Europe / USA. Prints and Multiples from the Museum of Modern Art | Weitman, Wendy | 1999 | |||
|
|
Gerhard Richter's 'Atlas': The Anomic Archive | Buchloh, Benjamin H. D. | 1999 | |||
|
Gerhard Richter, 18. Oktober 1977. Eine Kunst-Monographie | Hemken, Kai-Uwe | 1998 | |||
|
New Art on Paper 2: Acquired with Funds from the Hunt Manufacturing Co. 1989–1995 | Chahroudi, Martha / Dackerman, Susan / Ittmann, John / Percy, Ann / Shoemaker, Innis Howe | 1996 | |||
|
Gerhard Richter | Rainbird, Sean / Severne, Judith | 1991 | |||
|
Kunst ist Kunst ist Kunst. Der Galerie-Verein München, 1965-1990. Eine Auswahl der Sammlung in der Staatsgalerie moderner Kunst und in der Staatlichen Graphischen Sammlung | Goedl, Monika / Sonnenburg, Hubertus F. von / Bischoff, Ulrich / Schulz-Hoffmann, Carla / Rein, Ingrid / Sattler, Katharina / Holler, Wolfgang / Falk, Tilman | 1990 | |||
|
Gerhard Richter: Matrix 95 | Paoletti, John | 1987 |
This artwork is shown or mentioned in the following videos:
