Guess What? Hardcore Contemporary Art's Truly a World Treasure. Selected Works from the Yageo Foundation Collection

Gerhard Richter is widely recognized as one of the most significant painters working today, and he is certainly among the most influential. He has worked in a wide range of media since the early 1960s, producing abstractions, landscapes, images derived from the mass media and from other photographs, and more. Seen together, these works call into question such widely held assumptions as the importance of stylistic consistency, individual artistic sensibility and spontaneous creativity. They also explore the impact of technology and media imagery on the traditional methods and formats of painting.

The Museum of Modern Art has published two important books on Richter, both written by Robert Storr: one covering forty years of his work, and published to accompany the Museum's large retrospective of his work in 2002, and one focusing on a single crucial series, October 18, 1977. This book brings together the essays and recent interviews from both of those books in a single volume.

On October 18, 1977, three young German radicals, members of the militant Baader-Meinhof group, were found dead in a Stuttgart prison; they were pronounced suicides, but many people suspected they had been murdered. Gerhard Richter, a German painter, and one of the most exceptional and highly regarded artists of the second half of the 20th century, created, 11 years after this traumatic event, a series of 15 paintings known as October 18, 1977. It is among the most challenging works of the artist's career, and one of the 20th century's most famous works on a political theme, still highly debated and unsettling to this day.

Accompanied by an extensive and sensitive group of texts by Robert Storr, who recently curated the Richter retrospective at The Museum of Modern Art, New York.

The publication Gerhard Richter. Editions 1965 – 2013 updates the catalogue raisonné of his editions that was published ten years earlier. This book includes additionally 35 new and hitherto unknown works, as well as proofs. It contains all original works that were made in editions, such as prints, photographic editions, artist’s books, artist’s posters, multiples and editions of paintings, which were produced before 2013.

Text contributions by Hubertus Butin and Stefan Gronert provide an insight into techniques, form, relevance and context of the editions. Butin analyses the significance of editions in Richter’s oeuvre as well as its relevance in art history. Gronert concentrates on the importance of photography in Richter’s oeuvre; not only does it play a role as a medium of reproduction but also as source of templates for his paintings.

The publication Gerhard Richter. Editionen 1965 – 2013 updates the catalogue raisonné of his editions that was published ten years earlier. This book includes additionally 35 new and hitherto unknown works, as well as proofs. It contains all original works that were made in editions, such as prints, photographic editions, artist’s books, artist’s posters, multiples and editions of paintings, which were produced before 2013.

Text contributions by Hubertus Butin and Stefan Gronert provide an insight into techniques, form, relevance and context of the editions. Butin analyses the significance of editions in Richter’s oeuvre as well as its relevance in art history. Gronert concentrates on the importance of photography in Richter’s oeuvre; not only does it play a role as a medium of reproduction but also as source of templates for his paintings.

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.
 

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.