The Dresden-born artist is considered the most highly endowed living painter of all time and tops artist rankings worldwide. But Gerhard Richter as a person forms the greatest possible contrast to all these superlatives. He is conceivably modest. Any fuss about his person is unpleasant for him. For many years he has hardly appeared in public. Since his health is no longer so good and, moreover, the Corona rules, he prefers to stay at home in his quiet house with a studio in front in Cologne’s Hahnwald villa district.
In September 2020, the artist announced that he would stop painting at the age of 88. His works have been achieving record prices at international auctions for years. Even unsigned artworks of Heni Publishing series often achieve five times the issue price.
Gerhard Richter was born in 1932 in Dresden, where he lived until 1961. From 1951 to 1956 he studied at the Art Academy in Dresden and from 1961 to 1963 at the Art Academy in Düsseldorf. Gerhard Richter is regarded as one of the most important painters of the present day, and his extensive and diverse oeuvre has gained international recognition over the past five decades. Throughout his prolific career, Gerhard Richter has explored painting through a rich and varied spectrum of ideas, ranging from realistic works based on found images and photographs, to abstractions made with a squeegee, to two- and three-dimensional glass works, abstract drawings, and painted-over photographs of images from everyday life. His work was of great influence for several generations.
Gerhard Richter received numerous major awards, including the State Prize of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, Düsseldorf, 2000; the Praemium Imperiale Award, Japan, 1997; the Golden Lion of the 47th Biennale, Venice, 1997; the Kaiserring Prize of the City of Goslar, Germany, 1988; and the Oskar Kokoschka Prize, Vienna, 1985.
Gerhard Richter has been the subject of numerous important solo exhibitions, most recently at Museum Wiesbaden, Germany (2018); Museum Barberini, Potsdam, Germany (2018); Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Germany (2017); Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst (S.M.A.K. ) Ghent, Belgium (2017); Queensland Art Gallery, Brisben, Australia (2017); Espace Louis Vuitton, Beijing, China (2017); Museum Frieder Burda, Baden-Baden, Germany (2016); the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, Germany (2015); the Foundation Beyeler, Basel, Switzerland (2014); the Kunstmuseum Winterthur, Switzerland (2014); and the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, Germany (2013). He has exhibited internationally since the 1960s and has had a number of retrospectives, including most recently one that traveled from the Tate Modern, London, to the Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin, and the Centre Pompidou, Paris (2011-2012).
Selected Exhibitions
2021
Gagosian, New York, USA
Kunsthaus Zürich, Switzerland
Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin, Germany
Gerhard Richter in the studio.
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