Gerhard Richter: Atlas

Gerhard Richter has been widely regarded as a publicity shy artist. However, the biography Gerhard Richter, Maler gives an insight into Richter’s personal history as well as into the development of his artistic œuvre.
Besides an evaluation of numerous letters and material from the Gerhard Richter archive, the book includes conversations with the artist as well as several of his contemporaries. Dietmar Elger, director of the Gerhard Richter Archive, describes Richter’s daily studio routine and his creative process. Thanks to detailed background information, this book contributes to an understanding of Richter’s art in connection with his life.

The book was published on the occasion of the exhibition Gerhard Richter. Abstrakte Bilder at Museum Ludwig, Cologne and Haus der Kunst, Munich. The exhibitions were dedicated to Gerhard Richter’s abstract pictures, which form approximately one third of his œuvre.

However, this publication is not an overview of the development of his abstract works, but rather singles out selected large format works for discussion. These works, executed between 1986 and 2006, show a similar complexity that originates from a multitude of layers of paint.

Edited by Ulrich Wilmes, with text contributions by Benjamin H. D. Buchloh, Beate Söntgen and Gregor Stemmrich.

Gerhard Richter has been widely regarded as a publicity shy artist. However, the biography Gerhard Richter, Maler gives an insight into Richter’s personal history as well as into the development of his artistic œuvre.
Besides an evaluation of numerous letters and material from the Gerhard Richter archive, the book includes conversations with the artist as well as several of his contemporaries. Dietmar Elger, director of the Gerhard Richter Archive, describes Richter’s daily studio routine and his creative process. Thanks to detailed background information, this book contributes to an understanding of Richter’s art in connection with his life.

This edition of the biography Gerhard Richter, Maler published in 2008 was slightly revised to include details of more recent events in Richter’s life.

Gerhard Richter has been widely regarded as a publicity shy artist. However, the biography Gerhard Richter. A Life in Painting gives an insight into Richter’s personal history as well as into the development of his artistic œuvre.
Besides an evaluation of numerous letters and material from the Gerhard Richter archive, the book includes conversations with the artist as well as several of his contemporaries. Dietmar Elger, director of the Gerhard Richter Archive, describes Richter’s daily studio routine and his creative process. Thanks to detailed background information, this book contributes to an understanding of Richter’s art in connection with his life.

This English translation of the biography Gerhard Richter, Maler by Dietmar Elger, published in 2009, was slightly revised for the Anglophone reader.

Gerhard Richter. Portraits is the first publication that focuses solely on Richter’s portraits, many of which have now gained both recognition and veneration across the globe.

In his essay, Stefan Gronert discusses the position of the portrait in the artist’s oeuvre. He begins by looking at Richter’s early black and white pictures, then moving on to his more recent colour charts. The artist has explored this subject through various media, including painting, graphic reproduction, drawings, photography and film. Research conducted for this publication unearthed portraits in the artist’s archive that were hitherto unknown; now published in this monograph for the first time.
In his essay, Hubert Butin examines some of these newly discovered works; in particular focusing on Richter’s portrait photography of the 1960s.
 

This catalogue raisonné records Richter’s works in the years 1993-2004.

In his work, Gerhard Richter calls into question painting's boundaries, and the labels applied to painting and theories connected with them. In his pictures based on photographs - blurred overpaintings, grey paintings, and landscape and abstract compositions - he makes clear that nothing perceived by our senses can ever be found in a picture. The outer world is not portrayable and the inner one resists any comparison. While his painted works based on photographs illustrate painting's superiority, his glass works - glass panes, paintings on glass, mirrors and sculptures - question the interaction of viewer and picture and, like the paintings, offer a window onto the world. This publication takes account of all the important stages of Richter's oeuvre.