Product Description

Concerned with the relationship between painting and the technologically mediated image of photography, Gerhard Richter is recognized worldwide as one of the greatest living artists. With a brush that deftly and romantically captures abstract details and blurred newspaper images alike, he has transformed our understanding of art in the age of photographic reproduction and mass-media imagery. "100 Pictures" is a faithful reprint of the intimate, cloth-bound book Richter created in 1996 as a nontraditional anthology of his oeuvre. Following a short introduction to his early work, which features pictures long kept in his studio, "100 Pictures" presents Richter's output from an intensive period of work between 1995-96. Though this period mainly saw the production of abstract works, it also begat a cycle of eight small-format paintings of an intimate, private nature, which portray his young wife Sabine as a Madonna-and-child. "100 Pictures" is an extraordinary document of contemporary art, finally back in print. "You must believe in what you do. You must be deeply committed in order to paint. Once you become obsessed your conviction becomes so deep that in the end you are able to believe that humanity can be transformed by painting. But once this passion abandons you, there is nothing left to do. At that point it is better to forget about it, for, deep down, painting is complete idiocy." --Gerhard Richter
Edited by Hans Ulrich Obrist. Essays by Birgit Pelzer, Guy Tosatto.

6.75 x 8.75 in.
103 color illustrations
BACK IN PRINT

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #263365 in Books
• Published on: 2002-04-15
• Released on: 2002-02-02
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 156 pages

Amazon.com Review
Having the lovely and intimate volume Gerhard Richter: 100 Pictures in your hands is like being transported to the renowned painter's exhibition at the Carré d'Art in Nîmes. The beautifully produced book presents paintings from 1995 to 1996, an incredibly prolific time for Richter. The luscious images range from colorful abstractions with scraped and textured paint to his signature realist paintings based on photographs. A charming essay by Guy Tosatto offers a poetic explanation of Richter's work. The telling of a conversation between a mother and her whip-smart son mimics the series of mother and child paintings. Tosatto's characters discuss the nature of painting and illusion, while the portraits of Richter's wife and young child emerge in various degrees of clarity. The domestic theme continues with a number of flower paintings, including two almost identical paintings of yellow tulips, one blurry and one almost in focus, and a portrait of soft pink flowers with broken stems. --J.P. Cohen

Language Notes
Text: German

About the Author
Born in 1932 in Dresden, Germany, Gerhard Richter grew up under National Socialism and lived for 16 years under East German Communism before moving to West Germany in 1961. In the heady artistic milieu of Cologne and Dusseldorf in the 1960s, Richter discovered Art Informel, Neo-Dada, and Fluxus, and, together with Sigmar Polke and Konrad Lueg, briefly formed a satirical variant of Pop called "Capitalist Realism." Since then, he has emerged as one of the essential painters of the postwar period, pioneering realism with paintings made from photographs. His work has also profoundly engaged with Neo-Expressinism and Abstract Art.
Curator and art critic Hans Ulrich Obrist was born in Zurich in 1968. Some of the well-regarded exhibitions he has organized include many collaborations with the Museum in Progress in Vienna and the ongoing project "Migrations", at the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris.

Customer Reviews

100 color photos, concentrating on works of 1995-96
this is a summary of richter's recent oil paintings, with two critical essays. Although a few pre '90s paintings are shown (e.g. zwie grau, schaedel, some abstractes bild), most of the book covers the abstracted bilds and photo-paintings of 95-96. The 'realistic' works include several landscapes, lesende, works with flowers and the most excellent S. mit kind series. Also a rare self-portrait (836-10, 1996). Essays are 'the woman the child and the painting' by guy tosatto, and 'there is no there. gerhard richter at the carre d'Art in Nimes,' by Birgit Pelzer. printing is nice. we read that the artist was involved in the production of this very good buy.

Pictures Worth More Than 1000 Reviews
Americans, unless you were lucky enough to see the Gerhard Richter retrospective that toured American museums a few years ago, this book may be your best opportunity to get acquainted with one of the best German painters of recent decades. The book was published in conjunction with an exhibit of Richter's "private paintings" in Nimes, France. Most of the paintings were done in an intense burst of creativity in 1995-1996. These paintings are chiefly abstracts, done in a bouquet of fragant colors. To my eyes, Richter's abstracts are a revelation of serene painterly beauty in a genre - abstract expressionism - that has more often revealed bizarre turmoil and depression. If I were to buy an abstract for my parlor wall, I'd hope to afford a Richter.

Richter didn't paint abstractions only because he had no recourse to realism and old-masterly brushwork. A number of the plates in this book show his competence at photo-like realism and Degas-like impressionism; the choice of style was his, according to the perceived subject.

Richter himself collaborated on the production of this book. The pages are small - roughly 7'x10' - but the quality of ink and paper is very high, and the colors are as vibrant as the originals. Gerhard Richter is a painter whose art will be around for a long time, and with luck you'll get to see it in the museum nearest your home sometime, but you won't go wrong by getting a preview of it from this splendid volume.

My First Gerhard Richter Book...
I have been a Gerhard Richter book collector and art dealer for years now. Surprisingly enough, this was the 1st Gerhard Richter book I purchased and I have had a special place in my heart for it ever since. This little Gerhard Richter book is, for the money, well worth purchasing. In the under $50 range, this is one of the best Richter books on the market.