Gerhard Richter: Atlas, in Four Volumes

Info

Slip, hardcover
828 pages, 14 x 18 inches
Edition of 1500
Published by Walther König, 2015

Words

"More than 50 years ago, Gerhard Richter began mounting parts of his extensive collection of pictorial material on cardboard, hoping to create order and clarity among his archive of photos, newspaper clippings, sketches, drawings, construction plans, room design, collages, overpainted photographs and drafts of paintings. Richter eschewed chronology – his real interest was in iconographical and typological order. A work in progress, this Atlas soon developed into an independent Gesamtkunstwerk mirroring biographical and historical facts – an artistic cosmos of great autonomy, a source of all of his thought and creation. The artist's book has become an important genre for Richter, and in this large-format, four-volume edition, he has not only reproduced Atlas, but rearranged it. His decision to show all of his plates at a scale of 1:2 makes the monumental archive – with more than 5,000 images – visible in all its details for the first time. Richter himself has redefined the colour of his plates, piece by piece, through several correction phases, rendering this epic work accessible in a stunning new publication."

—Available from Artbook

Gerhard Richter Painting

01

Image

—01. At work.

Words

For some reason I missed seeing the documentary Gerhard Richter Painting, released in 2012. I finally took the time to watch it on Netflix, and it is an incredible and meditative portrait of one of the most gifted and recognized living artists; who's equally skilled in the styles of photo-real and abstract painting. I have loved his work ever since I realized it was his artwork on the cover of Daydream Nation, and it is inspiring to be a fly on the wall to his method in this film.

—Gerhard Richter