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Auction archive: Lot number 22

Gerhard Richter

Estimate
US$6,000,000 - US$8,000,000
Price realised:
US$8,005,000
Auction archive: Lot number 22

Gerhard Richter

Estimate
US$6,000,000 - US$8,000,000
Price realised:
US$8,005,000
Beschreibung:

Gerhard Richter Mädchen im Sessel (Lila) 1965-66 oil on canvas 35 x 42 7/8 in. (88.9 x 108.9 cm.) Signed and dated "Richter 65" on reverse; further signed and dated "5.9.66 G. Richter" along the overlap.
Provenance Private Collection, Germany Private Collection, Europe Sotheby’s, New York, Contemporary Art Evening Sale, May 12, 2004, lot 35 Acquired at the above sale by the present owner Literature D. Honisch, et. al., Gerhard Richter 36 Biennale di Venezia, German Pavilion, Essen: Museum Folkwang, 1972, p. 38 J. Harten, ed., Gerhard Richter Bilder Paintings 1962-1985, Cologne: DuMont, 1986, cat. no. 111, pp. 46, 364 (illustrated) A. Thill, et. al., Gerhard Richter Catalogue Raisonné, Vol. III, Osfildern Ruit 1993, cat. no. 111 (illustrated) D. Elger, Gerhard Richter Maler, Cologne: DuMont, 2002, p. 164 Video GERHARD RICHTER 'Mädchen im Sessel (Lila)', 1965-66 "In the photograph, I take even more focus out of the painted image, which is already a bit out of focus, and make the picture even smoother. I also subtract the materiality, the surface of the painting, and it becomes something diferent." - Gerhard Richter Drawn from photographic sources that Richter constructed with meticulous and mock-mechanical care and precision, this painting is a reaction against the illusion of figurative representation. Zach Miner, Head of Phillips's Contemporary Art Evening Sale discusses 'Mädchen im Sessel (Lila)' one of the most dramatic and deliberately enigmatic works the artists executed throughout one of the most fertile periods of his career. Catalogue Essay "In the photograph, I take even more focus out of the painted image, which is already a bit out of focus, and make the picture even smoother. I also subtract the materiality, the surface of the painting, and it becomes something different.” GERHARD RICHTER 2004 Mädchen im Sessel (Lila) is one of the most dramatic and deliberately enigmatic works Gerhard Richter executed throughout one of the most fertile periods of his ongoing and illustrious career. Drawn from photographic sources that Richter constructed with meticulous and mock-mechanical care and precision, collectively these paintings are a singular reaction against the illusion of figurative representation. This reaction would ultimately inform Richter’s own unique and profound investigation of the nature and qualities of painting as “model” of reality or bearer of truth. One of Richter’s ambitions in simulating photography in his work was to claim for painting the same sense of authority, authenticity, and objectivity with regard to “pictorial truth” or realism” that lies implicit within a photograph. Although a photograph hardly provides a veritable picture of reality, it does have unique and fascinating pictorial attributes of its own – qualities that Richter believed could benefit the very different nature of his own chosen, and more plastic, medium of painting. “I was able to see…[the photograph]…as a picture which conveyed a different aspect to me, without all those conventional criteria which I formerly attached to art. There was no style, no composition, no judgment. It liberated me from personal experience. There was nothing but a pure picture.” (G. Richter, “Interview with Rolf Schön,” XXXVI Biennale Internazionale dell’Arte, Venice, 1972, exh. cat., Folkwang Museum Essen, p. 23) Mädchen im Sessel (Lila) is remarkably one of only nine of the artist’s photo-realist images which are composed with only various gradations of a single color, in this case violet (an even more remarkable rarity as it is the only singularly purple painting in the artist’s oeuvre.) Typically, these works were executed in grayscale in much the same way as Richter would have found them in his source material. Breaking away from this stricter, literally black and white interpretation, the artist further stretches what it means for a work to be a painting versus a photograph, or how “veritable” a photograph may be assumed to be. Further, the swirls of lilac, heliotrope, mauve and all those in between create a vibrant abstraction of color which nearly subsumes the imagery within the picture. Having been associated with everything from Roman em

Auction archive: Lot number 22
Auction:
Datum:
15 May 2014
Auction house:
Phillips
New York
Beschreibung:

Gerhard Richter Mädchen im Sessel (Lila) 1965-66 oil on canvas 35 x 42 7/8 in. (88.9 x 108.9 cm.) Signed and dated "Richter 65" on reverse; further signed and dated "5.9.66 G. Richter" along the overlap.
Provenance Private Collection, Germany Private Collection, Europe Sotheby’s, New York, Contemporary Art Evening Sale, May 12, 2004, lot 35 Acquired at the above sale by the present owner Literature D. Honisch, et. al., Gerhard Richter 36 Biennale di Venezia, German Pavilion, Essen: Museum Folkwang, 1972, p. 38 J. Harten, ed., Gerhard Richter Bilder Paintings 1962-1985, Cologne: DuMont, 1986, cat. no. 111, pp. 46, 364 (illustrated) A. Thill, et. al., Gerhard Richter Catalogue Raisonné, Vol. III, Osfildern Ruit 1993, cat. no. 111 (illustrated) D. Elger, Gerhard Richter Maler, Cologne: DuMont, 2002, p. 164 Video GERHARD RICHTER 'Mädchen im Sessel (Lila)', 1965-66 "In the photograph, I take even more focus out of the painted image, which is already a bit out of focus, and make the picture even smoother. I also subtract the materiality, the surface of the painting, and it becomes something diferent." - Gerhard Richter Drawn from photographic sources that Richter constructed with meticulous and mock-mechanical care and precision, this painting is a reaction against the illusion of figurative representation. Zach Miner, Head of Phillips's Contemporary Art Evening Sale discusses 'Mädchen im Sessel (Lila)' one of the most dramatic and deliberately enigmatic works the artists executed throughout one of the most fertile periods of his career. Catalogue Essay "In the photograph, I take even more focus out of the painted image, which is already a bit out of focus, and make the picture even smoother. I also subtract the materiality, the surface of the painting, and it becomes something different.” GERHARD RICHTER 2004 Mädchen im Sessel (Lila) is one of the most dramatic and deliberately enigmatic works Gerhard Richter executed throughout one of the most fertile periods of his ongoing and illustrious career. Drawn from photographic sources that Richter constructed with meticulous and mock-mechanical care and precision, collectively these paintings are a singular reaction against the illusion of figurative representation. This reaction would ultimately inform Richter’s own unique and profound investigation of the nature and qualities of painting as “model” of reality or bearer of truth. One of Richter’s ambitions in simulating photography in his work was to claim for painting the same sense of authority, authenticity, and objectivity with regard to “pictorial truth” or realism” that lies implicit within a photograph. Although a photograph hardly provides a veritable picture of reality, it does have unique and fascinating pictorial attributes of its own – qualities that Richter believed could benefit the very different nature of his own chosen, and more plastic, medium of painting. “I was able to see…[the photograph]…as a picture which conveyed a different aspect to me, without all those conventional criteria which I formerly attached to art. There was no style, no composition, no judgment. It liberated me from personal experience. There was nothing but a pure picture.” (G. Richter, “Interview with Rolf Schön,” XXXVI Biennale Internazionale dell’Arte, Venice, 1972, exh. cat., Folkwang Museum Essen, p. 23) Mädchen im Sessel (Lila) is remarkably one of only nine of the artist’s photo-realist images which are composed with only various gradations of a single color, in this case violet (an even more remarkable rarity as it is the only singularly purple painting in the artist’s oeuvre.) Typically, these works were executed in grayscale in much the same way as Richter would have found them in his source material. Breaking away from this stricter, literally black and white interpretation, the artist further stretches what it means for a work to be a painting versus a photograph, or how “veritable” a photograph may be assumed to be. Further, the swirls of lilac, heliotrope, mauve and all those in between create a vibrant abstraction of color which nearly subsumes the imagery within the picture. Having been associated with everything from Roman em

Auction archive: Lot number 22
Auction:
Datum:
15 May 2014
Auction house:
Phillips
New York
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