Gerhard Richter - Focus Report

4

Fabian Svarnas

on behalf of the ArtExplored team

editorial@artexploredcom

After examining the market for Claude Monet’s Water Lilies in our

first Focus Report, we now turn to another influential artist and

one of the highest selling at auction: Gerhard Richter.

Richter has significantly impacted the art scene for over six

decades. Blurring the lines between representational images and

abstract forms, he continually challenged painting by exploring

new possibilities. Now 92 years old, Richter mainly focuses on his

work on paper, having stopped painting in 2017.

His Monumental Abstrakte Bilder (Abstract Paintings), created

between 1985 and 1994, fetch almost all of Richter’s highest

prices at auction. They showcase the artist’s signature technique,

which he developed then, and symbolise the height of his pictorial

research. During this time, Richter began prominently utilising a

squeegee, a sizable flat tool, dragging it methodically across the

canvas to create unpredictable colour formations. While they

don’t depict visual reality, they might represent something we

cannot see. These paintings are also rare in their format of 200

cm in height or more. Between 1985 and 1994, Richter made less

than 200 Monumental Abstrakte Bilder, according to his online

catalogue raisonné.

Through this Focus Report, explore the auction history of these

paintings, which form part of the highest end of the contemporary

art market.

Start exploring

F o r e w o r d