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Lot Essay
'Abstract paintings... visualize a reality, which we can neither see nor describe but which we may nevertheless conclude exists. We attach negative names to this reality; the unknown, the ungraspable, the infinite, and for thousands of years we have depicted in terms of substitute images like heaven and hell, gods and devils. With abstract painting we create a better means of approaching what can neither be seen nor understood because abstract painting illustrates with the greatest clarity, that is to say, with all the means at the disposal of art, 'nothing'... [in abstract paintings] we allow ourselves to see the un-seeable, that which has never before been seen and indeed is not visible' (G. Richter quoted in J. Fineberg, Art Since 1940: Strategies of Being, London, 2000, p. 374).
Created in 1988, Abstraktes Bild is a majestic example of Gerhard Richter's celebrated medium, from the finest period of his abstraction. Perfectly square, the canvas offers up palimpsests of carmine and vermillion red, with flashes of cyan blue spreading throughout the composition. Vertical striations of bronzed yellow appear from within the rich surface, following the gestures of the artist's squeegee over canvas. Almost regal in its noble palette of red and blue, this work confirms Richter's position as one of the greatest colourists of late twentieth century painting. Perhaps unwittingly, the wealth of colours and free flow of gestures employed in Abstraktes Bild invoke the sublime, the viewer elevated through the visual pleasure of exploring the varied contours of the canvas. Having been acquired directly from the artist, this is the first time that this exceptional painting has been on view to the public in over twenty years.
Created in 1988, Abstraktes Bild is a majestic example of Gerhard Richter's celebrated medium, from the finest period of his abstraction. Perfectly square, the canvas offers up palimpsests of carmine and vermillion red, with flashes of cyan blue spreading throughout the composition. Vertical striations of bronzed yellow appear from within the rich surface, following the gestures of the artist's squeegee over canvas. Almost regal in its noble palette of red and blue, this work confirms Richter's position as one of the greatest colourists of late twentieth century painting. Perhaps unwittingly, the wealth of colours and free flow of gestures employed in Abstraktes Bild invoke the sublime, the viewer elevated through the visual pleasure of exploring the varied contours of the canvas. Having been acquired directly from the artist, this is the first time that this exceptional painting has been on view to the public in over twenty years.