Gerhard Richter

One of the most important artists of the 20th and 21st centuries, the obsessively photorealistic paintings and bold abstract works of the German visual artist Gerhard Richter explore themes of memory, authorship and the passage of time. His iconic technique, created using a large squeegee, involves modifying original photographs by blurring certain objects or features and applying painterly brushstrokes in a revolutionary gesture that brings out the tension between the different media.

Born in 1932 in Dresden, Richter’s childhood was heavily impacted by the Nazi regime in Germany, with some of his artworks touching on the dark history of his home country. In the early 1950s, he attended the Kunstakademie in Dresden to study Socialist Realist painting and was soon exposed to avant-garde art forms, becoming part of a network of emerging German artists, including Sigmar Polke and Georg Baselitz.

In 1960, he created his famous ‘Photo-paintings’, earning him critical success and recognition from the art establishment. During the 1970s, Richter entered his “Constructive phase”, a style of art that he still creates today, alternating between naturalistic forms and abstract painting.