Gerhard Richter is best known for his innovative incorporations of photography and painting that uniquely reconcile representation and abstraction. Born in Germany during the rise of the Nazi regime, Richter avoided ideological artistic expressions. After fleeing to West Germany in 1961, he started producing blurred yet realistic paintings taken from photographs and opened his practice to a variety of media. In the following decades, Richter experimented with abstraction, employing original tools and producing large, monochromatic canvases which question the limits of representation. He continues to push the boundaries of painting, blurring the lines between materiality and illusionistic space.

Gerhard Richter’s artistic explorations, which stretch over more than six decades, constitute a radical attempt to integrate representation and abstraction. Known for his painted copies of black and white photographs rendered with a blurred effect, Richter has broadened the potentials of both photography and painting.

Love clarity? Love chaos? Gerhard Richter's artwork intersects these two poles—he is recognised as one of the most significant influential artists of the 20th and 21st centuries. Richter's work contains mesmerisingly particular photorealistic paintings as well as works driven by squeegeeing chaos through an emotive lens, then pulls it away and drops it into a free-falling abyss of colour. Richter refuses to be categorised in any one style of painting; he mastered realism, destroyed it, then redefined abstract painting altogether.

Richter's progression from early figurative works to mammoth canvases that feel like fractal explosions of color has engaged collectors, critics, and curators globally. Richter's work is now entrenched in the best collections worldwide, exhibited retrospectives; and sales at blue chip auctions. Richter's artworks are some of the most coveted of contemporary art history.

Peruse authenticated Gerhard Richter artwork — collectable edition artwork through to major works — and become part of an artist's legacy that continues to reinvent what painting can be.

## About Gerhard Richter

Gerhard Richter was born in Dresden, Germany, in 1932. Before becoming a world-renowned artist, Richter's career included learning the formally unofficial style of Socialist Realism in East Germany. In 1961 - with the impending Berlin Wall - Richter moved to West Germany, and this forced move significantly altered the landscape of his work, which was then exposed to new socially and culturally avant-garde movements like Fluxus and Pop Art.

Richter has fluidly moved between different styles over the last sixty years while still maintaining a portfolio of work that includes paintings in the styles of photorealism, abstraction, colour charts, and unrelated glass-stained windows. Richter's work is inseparable from curated exhibitions at MoMA, Tate Modern and Centre Pompidou, and he practices as one of the most important voices in post-war and [contemporary art](https://fairart.com/editorial/guide/contemporary-art/11).

Few artists have made their mark in art history with an abundance of work and a virulent condemnation of embracing a single “style.”


Gerhard Richter

German

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Artist

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Self-Portrait