Amazon.com

The beautiful catalog Gerhard Richter: Forty Years of Painting accompanies the Museum of Modern Art's retrospective of this prolific and important German artist. Richter's many artistic achievements vacillate between pure abstraction and a kind of realism. His realistic paintings, based primarily on personal photographs and images from newspapers, range in subject matter from the banal, like rolls of toilet paper, to the extremely potent, such as famous Nazi "doctor" Werner Hyde. The paintings have in common an emotional remove; the re-creating of photographic images points us toward our own possible emotional detachment to the influx of images in the world. A blurred chair, Jackie Kennedy, burning candles, family portraits--Richter lays them all out before us as if to say, Here, they are all the same. The insightful text by MoMA curator Robert Storr provides an in-depth look at Richter's life in postwar Germany, tracing the influences and environment that made his work possible. The book includes a revealing interview with the artist and a detailed chronology of his life and work, plus 138 color illustrations and 165 duotones. --J.P. Cohen ... Read more

Reviews (8)

A great artist thumbs his nose at high art
A lot of words been written lately about the 'unexpected revival of painting' fueled by the current Gerhardt Richter painting retrospective captured in this book. It seems, according to some influential art scribes writing in the trail of this traveling exhibition, that the much heralded demise of painting, much like Mark Twain's death, has been greatly exaggerated. Showcasing about 120 works over a 40-year period, this book is one of the most comprehensive retrospectives ever mounted about a contemporary painter in recent memory, and that by itself is a strong enough reason to buy it. However, it is what has been proven by Richter's career and accomplishments, and unexpected stature in the art world (Sotheby's recently dubbed him the 'most influential living artist in the world') and now driven home here, that makes this a-once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to learn some lessons about the contemporary art world. You see, Richter doesn't fit the formula for success that many art curators and influential critics and other art powers-that-be have carefully crafted in the rarified atmospheres of the upper crusts of the art world. In fact, Richter breaks every 'rule' that often starts being pressed upon 18-year old art students and then is hammered home in reviews and lectures by many contemporary art critics and curators. Rules like 'you better have your own recognizable style!' or 'only new is good' and the oddest rule of all: 'painting is dead!' But Richter is not only a painter in an era forced to focus on video artists, performance stars and PhotoShop wonders, but also Richter wanders from style to style with an ease and speed that makes this book a lesson on half a dozen art movements of the last century beautifully continued onto the current one. Thumb through the pages here and you'll soon discover that Richter is as much as ease with photorealism ' some ultra sharp and some foggy in detail -- as he is with pure abstraction and with romantic paintings of pretty clouds and scenic waterfalls. This is an artist who is not just happy with thumbing his nose at the well-enforced rule that a good artist has to have a clearly identifiable style and do something 'new', but who also seems intent on destroying the other forced formulas of the modern art world: he copies other artists' works, works directly from photographs, blah, blah, blah ' all sins that would make all my art professors and most art critics sigh in disgust. But above all, Richter paints, and he paints in a time when painting has been dismissed as 'ailing' and 'ancient.' New is good, technology is good' painting is dead.' Why does Richter paint? Doesn't he get it? NOPE!! It's because it is all about painting! And managing to make fools of critics who forget that their job is to follow the artist ' not to lead the arts. What those who consider painting an 'ailing' form will never understand (mostly because they are not painters), is that Richter can't and won't stop painting, because through his veins runs the same intoxicating venom that fueled their ancestral kin in the caves of Altamira and which will continue to drive painters long after today's critics and curators are forgotten dust. This book shouts: Art does not have to be 'new' to be good, and technology is not the only venue to deliver great new contemporary art - it also continues to prove that painting will never die.

Fine Art, Well Published
Gerhard Richter is one of the finest Pop artists of the 20th century. ("Pop" because he is highly non-ideological, even depicting ideological subjects in a completely neutral fashion. His works are plain-old nice to look at.) This book is a beautiful representation of his work, chock-full of his painting, from his earliest works to his most recent, printed nicely in full color. It is specifically the catalog for the exhibit of his works at MOMA in early 2002 (which this reviewer attended, with great delight), but the exhibition was so broad, with a wide range of paintings across Richter's full career, the number of paintings in this book is satisfyingly broad.

Richter has dabbled in many styles, and continues to produce works to this day, but most often works with abstraction or semi-abstraction. His sense of color is wonderful, and his sense of vision is superb, by which I mean his paintings force you to stop and stare for long periods of time. Many of his paintings are like photographs taken just slightly out of focus. (He uses a projector, but modifies the image just enough to make you know a human did the work.) Their beauty truly makes you look long at them, and their skill makes you wonder how a person can achieve such subtle effects of lighting in painted oil on canvas.

This book also contains good explanations of Richter's work, but these can become tiresome at times. The worst is that the reviews and the plates are not indexed very well, so it is frustratingly difficult to find a given work, either in the list of plates, or in the various texts. This is a major disappointment, but never mind. The reason to purchase this book is the art. The text is explanatory enough to teach the reader about Richter's career and work, and serves its purpose well enough.

It is not clear whether the reader unfamiliar with Richter's work, or who has not seen it in person, can enjoy this book on its own merit, but for the reader even slightly aware or curious of Richter's career, this is a welcome volume for the library.

beautiful pictures, questionable text
This was a gorgeous show, but kind of conservative -- made Richter into the new "master" of painting, sidelines all his weirder and more "conceptual" work. And why does Robert Storr have to try so hard to put himself at the center of everything?? I saw the Richter show in SF around 1990, so no, this is NOT "the frist American retrospective." And Storr's dismissive (and often really uninformed) treatment of other critics (especially German critic Benjamin Buchloh, who's written on Richter for like, decades) shows what a limited writer and scholar Storr really is. But for better or worse, the pictures are great, and a lot of the other material is really good.

Amazing Retrospective
Richter has garnered a lot of attention this past season in New York with a retrospective, and judging from this book, quite deservedly so. There is a wealth of examples from Richter's work from the past forty years, and the quality of the prints are uniformly excellent. Storr's critical stance and biographical introduction run about 70+ pages, and they are very helpful for a person who is just learning about Richter's work, and still remain informative for his old fans. The interview included is enlightening, too. This is one of the better artist retrospectives to have come out in the past few years. Highly recommended.

the unblinking blur
Behold, German painting! In a country whose artists tend to lay the paint on blut and thick, Richter is a notable contrast. He represents, along with Sigmar Polke, the best of a school of European painters who assimilated the American Pop Art scene. Don't expect the blazing cartoon colors of Lichtenstein though, Richter is a painter's painter, who has more depth and soul than Warhol ever could (surely by his own admission). But Richter's subject matter also comes from the mundane: a faded family snapshot, a clipping from a newspaper. Bits of emphemera blown up a hundred times and immortalized in oil paint. Clement Greenberg might abhore Richter's work more than the American Pop Artists: here is grand kitcsh by the hand of a master painter.
*note that I speak mostly of Richter's representative work, of which the book mostly focuses on. Also, the large Richter retrospective, having left N.Y., is still touring America for those interested ... Read more

Book Description

"Now that we do not have priests and philosophers anymore, artists are the most important people in the world. . . . Art is wretched, cynical, stupid, helpless, confusing." -- Gerhard Richter

Gerhard Richter, born in Dresden in 1932, is one of the foremost painters of his generation. A great deal has been written about the bewildering heterogeneity of his work over the past 30 years. His seemingly willful and defiant movement between abstract and figurative modes of representation and his seemingly inconsistent methods of applying paint to canvas are consistent, if nothing else, with Richter himself -- the master of the paradoxical statement. Although he has emphasized that he is first a painter and has never been a theorist, he has, throughout his career issued provocative, contentious, and memorable statements. Over seven years in preparation, this book makes available a selection of Richter's texts from all periods of his career, many translated for the first time. There are public statements about specific exhibitions, private reflections drawn from personal correspondence, answers to questions posed by critics, and excerpts from journals discussing the intentions, subjects, methods, and sources of his works from various periods. The writings are accompanied by 87 biographical illustrations of paintings from the artist's personal collection. Published in association with the Anthony d'Offay Gallery, London ... Read more

Reviews (3)

A genius.
I really enjoyed this book. I bought it at the Ricther exhibit I just saw at the SFMOMA a few weeks ago. I wasn't familiar with his work until then. I was awed at the different themes and usage of what would seem to be everyday normal moments caught with an unearthly feel. He's even using music and video installations now. This book does uses his collected notes, interviews and letters as an insight into the thinking behind the artist. Richter's philosophy of not subscribing to any ideaology is very evident here. He seems especially disdainfull of Communism as it does not afford the freedom for individual creation. He's been grasping to make sense of his art all his life and its what has been driving him. You can see it in his paintings. The work itself becomes a question. Why this subject. What is relevant? What is the importance. Why this style of painting? What is the meaning of the photograph it's based on? The book is chock full of interesting ideas on art, art history and the current state of society and the culture. Even if you don't agree with it all - it's still a very interesting read. I do recommend that you first familiarize yourself with Richter's various works first. You'll enjoy the book all the more.

Class Act
Ironically, this book - that decries idealogies - could be a Bible, speaking almost always on deeply conceptual issues not only of artmaking but of living. Fortunately, for those with a pulse, there is sufficient comic relief in the form of absurdities, parodies and self-aggrandizement.

It is tempting to skip the early writing and go straight to the wisdom through maturity (the notes are chronologically arranged.) That would be unfortunate for there are tremendous nuggets scattered among the contradictions in the earlier pages.

If you're familiar with his work, much will be self-evident; but I found surprisingly astute reflections from the "young" Richter (ie:'66): "I like continual uncertainty". On the issue of changing style/form every 3-4 years, Richter claims that "historically speaking, changeable artists are a growing phenomenon". Even back in '77, he says "Painting has a brilliant future. Hasn't it?" Strong words, and brave for the time. If only the irascible Kuspit had read this before he slammed Richter (as "profoundly nihilistic") and believed such statements as "I want pictorial content without sentiment, but I want it as human as possible" or "the pleasure of painting proves the necessity of it".

I hope future editions of this include the charming interview with Robert Storr in Art In America Jan. 2002 - which clued me into the fact that Richter had a set of writings out. There are a few photos that show the various painting forms he's explored so if you don't know his work, you can get some idea what all the discussion's about.

Compelling
A wildly compelling book that should appeal to artists, philosophers and other thoughtful people. It contains journal entries, interviews, and musings of Richer's everyday struggles to discover what it means to be an artist. I tried to start at the beginning, but found it much more interesting to open the book to a random passage and each time discovered thought-provoking ideas. At first glance, his ideas and declarations often seem quite ludicrous, but if you take one moment to consider his thoughts, his genius is revealed. His prose (sometimes scathing) is extremeley amusing when read aloud as it was by a group of artists working on a large project. We took turns reading a passage and then found ourselves discussing (and quoting) it for days. His writings include the impact of his early life on his artwork, critiques of other artist's work (Anslem Keiffer does not fare well here!), keen observations and interpretations from studying art and the human condition in modern society as well as ideas, form, materials, and content in art. I found that it opened up a new way of thinking about my own work and why I am driven to create. I highly recommend it. ... Read more

Book Description

Whenever Gerhard Richter goes to Sils, a small town in the Swiss Alps, he makes photographs, some of which he overpaints and adds to his Atlas. Others he treats as autonomous works, as in those presented in this intimate artist's book. In the overpainted photographs, the levels of reality evident in photography are combined with those that exist in painting. However, the paired concepts prove redundant of both the realism in photographic representation and the abstraction in nonfigurative painting. The photographs reveal a parallel between both forms of painterly practice, evidence of the simultaneous existence of contradictory bodies of work in Richter's oeuvre.

Edited by Hans-Ulrich Obrist.
Essay by Peter Andre Bloch.

Hardcover, 4.5 x 6 in., 88 pages, 55 color Illustrations ... Read more

Book Description

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 manners since the early 1960s, producing abstractions, landscapes, images derived from the mass media and 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 40 years of his painting, and published to accompany the museum's large Richter retrospective in spring 2002, and one focusing on a single crucial series, October 18, 1977, which Richter painted in 1988. This new publication brings together the essays, an interview and bibliography from both of those books in a single volume--an ideal service for the student who wants both texts at hand at a relatively low price .
[Robert] Storr's is one of the sharpest minds in American art museums. --The New York Review of Books
[Gerhard Richter is] Europe's most challenging modern painter. --Michael Kimmelman

Essays by Robert Storr.

Paperback , 6.5 x 9.75 in. 336 pages, 198 b/willustrations ... Read more

Amazon.com

Having the lovely and intimate volume Gerhard Richter: 100 Pictures in your hands is like being transported to the renowned painter's exhibition at the Carré d'Art in Nîmes. The beautifully produced book presents paintings from 1995 to 1996, an incredibly prolific time for Richter. The luscious images range from colorful abstractions with scraped and textured paint to his signature realist paintings based on photographs. A charming essay by Guy Tosatto offers a poetic explanation of Richter's work. The telling of a conversation between a mother and her whip-smart son mimics the series of mother and child paintings. Tosatto's characters discuss the nature of painting and illusion, while the portraits of Richter's wife and young child emerge in various degrees of clarity. The domestic theme continues with a number of flower paintings, including two almost identical paintings of yellow tulips, one blurry and one almost in focus, and a portrait of soft pink flowers with broken stems. --J.P. Cohen ... Read more

Reviews (1)

100 color photos, concentrating on works of 1995-96
this is a summary of richter's recent oil paintings, with two critical essays. Although a few pre '90s paintings are shown (e.g. zwie grau, schaedel, some abstractes bild), most of the book covers the abstracted bilds and photo-paintings of 95-96. The 'realistic' works include several landscapes, lesende, works with flowers and the most excellent S. mit kind series. Also a rare self-portrait (836-10, 1996). Essays are 'the woman the child and the painting' by guy tosatto, and 'there is no there. gerhard richter at the carre d'Art in Nimes,' by Birgit Pelzer. printing is nice. we read that the artist was involved in the production of this very good buy. ... Read more

Book Description

For Gerhard Richter, creating intimate works on paper enables him to establish a reflective distance from his painterly oeuvre. It is not coincidental that there is an increased output of watercolors precisely when Richter's painterly work shifts directions. For example, when Richter began to paint abstract pictures and experiment with different themes, we see during this period the appearance of his first abstract watercolors, a different scale and medium that provides a base from which his larger paintings can play off of, and vice versa. This book includes over 100 color reproductions of these paintings, as well as a discussion between the artist and Dieter Schwartz examining the thematics of his work. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

richter
i purchased this book recently and was very pleased with richter's abstract watercolors.

richter does not fall into the anglo-american tradition of watercolor. and, his watercolors tend to be small. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

study of a vein of major artist's work
While Richter's art works without color may not have received the attention as his other works, they make up about one third of this major contemporary artist's work. "The absence of color has become a leitmotif" of Richter's career of more than 40 years. The works without color are more than a contrast, like a shadow, alluding to primary works. For Richter, colorlessness has its own status and value. Richter remarks, "Gray is the welcome and only possible equivalence for indifference, non-commitment, absence of opinion, absence of shape." About 40 works of different shapes, sizes, and mediums in various shades of light and dark from a smoke-like gray to a dense, pitch, black with occasional flecks or limited hues of color illustrate Richter's regard of gray. One cannot understand Richter's place as one of the foremost contemporary artists nor his intents as an artist without taking into account this "motif" of his art based on this regard. ... Read more

Amazon.com

For nearly 40 years, in a body of work that often looks as though it was made by several different artists, Gerhard Richter has been examining the ways we perceive reality and the effects of different forms of representation on the viewer. "For me," he has said, "there is no difference between a landscape and an abstract painting. In my view, the term 'realism' makes no sense." Richter began painting on photographs in 1989 as a way of conflating sets of opposing values: the tactile paint mark that is actually abstract and the illusionistic depiction of real space created by the action of light on film. The slender volume Gerhard Richter: Florence contains a series of small square snapshots, mostly of the view outside Richter's Cologne studio and street scenes in Florence, which he altered by applying oil paint with a palette knife. In some images, he reinforces the intense color of the photograph (vivid swipes of red and yellow on autumn foliage, for example). In others, the paint nearly obliterates the scene (a milky sheet of paint nearly wiping out a bridge reflected in the Arno River). The artist, who originally conceived the project for a set of CDs (thus the square format), painstakingly subverts normal expectations. The numerical dates that serve as titles are unrelated to the dates when the photographs were taken or painted. Even the size of the reproductions is ever-so-slightly larger (rather than smaller) than the originals. But the visual pleasure of the images doesn't rely on any theoretical underpinning. The rhythmic blotting out of chunks of a view with bands of high-key color creates an abstract beauty all the more jewel-like for being rendered in miniature. --Cathy Curtis ... Read more

Reviews (1)

richter- "florence"
having become a fan of richter's, i always snatch up anything of his that i can find. that said, when i saw this book at the store, i flipped through it, and decided to buy it instantly.

as fans of richter's know, he is an avid photographer; not a professional, or artistic photographer, but rather, an avid snapshooter. this book has may of those snapshots of his from florence, italy, and cologne, germany. he then applied his trademark abstract painting over the photographs. all of the images in the book are representations of some of his 12cm x 12cm oil on photograph. the representations in the book are 13cm x 13cm in size.

any fan of richter' sabstract pictures will be a fa ofthis book. ... Read more

Book Description

In May 2002, Gerhard Richter photographed 216 details of his abstract painting no. 648-2, from 1987. Working on a long table over a period of several weeks, Richter combined these 10 x 15 cm details with 165 texts on the Iraq war, published in the German FAZ newspaper on March 20 and 21. War Cut follows an ever denser rhythm in which texts and gaps take up the same amount of space as the pictures, creating a strictly composed work of open and closed layouts and their mirror images, a conceptual and, simultaneously, very sensual artist's book.

Hardcover, 9.75 x 8.25 in./380 pgs / 216 color. ... Read more

Book Description

In his investigations of the nature of the constructed image and the perception of truth versus fiction, Gerhard Richter, one of the most influential artists of the 20th century, has worked in numerous styles and playfully but astutely questioned our expectations of both photography and painting. Expanding on his study of the nature of looking, Richter has also experimented with windows, mirrors, and the frame throughout his career. This series of eight gray, mirrored panels, created on the occasion of a commission from the Deutsche Guggenheim Berlin, is part of the particular aspect of his oeuvre focused on in Eight Gray: the importance of the Mirror series, projects in glass, gray monochromes, and related works. More than 50 images of drawings and other works dating from 1965 to the present, as well as studies for the Berlin installation, are illustrated alongside an essay by Richter expert Benjamin H. D. Buchloh and a focused bibliography. No other publication has been dedicated to the understanding and analysis of this significant segment of the artist's career.

Essay by Benjamin H. D. Buchloh.

Hardcover, 10 x 11 in., 128 pages, 80 color, 25 b/w illustrations ... Read more

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Parachute: Contemporary Art Magazine, published by Parachute Contemporary Art on July 1, 1996. The length of the article is 1209 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Gerhard Richter (exhibition).
Author: Charles Reeve
Publication: Parachute: Contemporary Art Magazine (Magazine/Journal)
Date: July 1, 1996
Publisher: Parachute Contemporary Art
Issue: 83Page: 57-8

Distributed by Thompson Gale ... Read more

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Mosaic (Winnipeg), published by University of Manitoba, Mosaic on December 1, 1999. The length of the article is 6290 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Mapping After the Holocaust: The "Atlases" of Adrienne Rich and Gerhard Richter.
Author: Joshua S. Jacobs
Publication: Mosaic (Winnipeg) (Refereed)
Date: December 1, 1999
Publisher: University of Manitoba, Mosaic
Volume: 32Issue: 4Page: 111

Distributed by Thomson Gale ... Read more

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Parachute: Contemporary Art Magazine, published by Parachute Contemporary Art on January 1, 1999. The length of the article is 4926 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Image-evenement: representations de la terreur dans l'oeuvre de Willie Doherty et de Gerhard Richter.
Author: Vincent Lavoie
Publication: Parachute: Contemporary Art Magazine (Magazine/Journal)
Date: January 1, 1999
Publisher: Parachute Contemporary Art
Issue: 93Page: 20-7

Distributed by Thompson Gale ... Read more