Gerhard Richter: Vermalung (grau)

Gerhard Richter: Vermalung (grau)
RICHTER, GERHARD
1932 Dresden

Title: Vermalung (grau).
Date: 1971.
Technique: Oil on plastic paper.
Measurement: 39,5 x 40cm.
Notation: Signed, dated and numbered verso centre: Richter, 8.9.71 I/X. Ex. I/X. .

The work appears in a total edition of 160 copies, of which 10 copies are numbered with Roman numerals and 150 with Arabic numerals. According to the catalogue raisonné, 20 of the 150 copies were destroyed.

Due to the way the paint is applied with the finger, all sheets differ from each other, giving each copy a unique character.

The work is listed on the official website under Editionen (Editions).
(www.gerhard-richter.com)

Provenance:
- Private collection South Germany

Literature:
- Butin, Hubertus/Gronert, Stefan/Olbricht, Thomas (eds.): Gerhard Richter - Editions 1965-2013, Ostfildern 2014, cat. rais. no. 45, ill.

- Each work in the painting edition is unique
- Characteristic early example of Richter's intense preoccupation with the colour grey, which led him to abstraction


The first painting edition
Gerhard Richter's first painting edition, “Vermalung (Grau)” (Painting (Gray)), was created in 1971. In all copies of the edition, the artist spread liquid, monochrome gray oil paint on plastic paper with his finger, whose movements seem to have no beginning and no end. This created a uniform and non-hierarchical all-over structure in which the traces of the paint interpenetrate and overlap. Such paintings are, as Richter put it in 1973, “pictures that arise from the process” (quote) and which also make this process visible.
The gestural traces are not to be read as personal expression. Richter puts not expressive, but rather emotionless, self-forgetful gestures on paper. The achromatic, indifferent, and thus neutral gray supports this impression, as it triggers no feelings and illustrates nothing. Here, the artist reflects on the means of his painting in an extremely restrained manner, yet creates a complex pictorial structure that appears differently in each copy, making the edition a series of unique pieces.
Hubertus Butin


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Explanations to the Catalogue

Gerhard Richter
Germany
Abstraction
Capitalistic Realism
New Realism
Post-War Art
Post War
1970s
Abstract
Works on paper
Oil
Colour