Gerhard Richter - Untitled

Gerhard Richter

Untitled
1972

Oil on synthetic material on canvas. 61 x 86 cm. Framed. Signed and dated 'Richter, 1972'. Signed, dated and inscribed ''Ohne Titel' Richter, 1972', with information on material and directional arrow on powder card verso. - Traces of studio and minor traces of age.

"Grey. It simply has no statement, it triggers neither feelings nor associations, it is actually neither visible nor invisible. Its inconspicuousness makes it so suitable for conveying, for illustrating, in an almost illusionistic way, like a photograph. And, like no other colour, it is suitable for illustrating 'nothing.'
Grey is, for me, the welcome and only possible equivalent to indifference, refusal to make a statement, absence of opinion, formlessness. But since grey, just like formlessness and so on, can only really exist as an idea, I can only produce a shade that denotes grey, but is not grey. The painting is then the mixture of grey as fiction and grey as a visibly proportioned colour surface.
And finally: I am fascinated by this kind of reduced painting in general because I believe that, full of scruples and with great caution, it attempts a correctness or, better, a commitment of painting, that it strives for a quality that tends toward validity and the general. That seems important to me, in view of a reckless, proliferating productivity that is becoming increasingly noncommittal".
(Gerhard Richter, quoted in: Gerhard Richter Text 1961 bis 2007, Schriften, Interviews, Briefe, Aus einem Brief an Edy de Wilde 23.2.1975, Cologne 2008, p.92).

Certificate

With accompanying confirmation from Dietmar Elger, Gerhard Richter Archive, Dresden, dated 06.12.2017.

Provenance

Galerie Fred Jahn, Munich (1972); Phillips, London, 4.10.2018, lot 106; Galerie Thomas Zander, Cologne; private collection, North Rhine-Westphalia

Exhibitions

Cologne 2018/2019 (Galerie Zander), Gerhard Richter, Michael Schmidt, Die Farbe Grau, exhib.cat., p. 59 with col.illus.