1963

This fairytale castle was dreamt up by Bavaria’s King Ludwig II. This image was probably taken from the cover of an issue of Stern magazine from August 1963.  The painting has an unfinished look, made more apparent by the unpainted strip down the right-hand-side which shows the edge of the grid Richter used to transpose the image onto canvas.

• Material: Oil and lacquer on canvas
• Size: 190 x 150 cm
• Frieder Burda Collection
• © Gerhard Richter

1964

Richter produced a series of military aircraft paintings in 1963-4. Rather than attempting to convey an anti-war message, Richter has argued that he painted the aircraft pictures because of his fear and fascination with war, having grown up in Germany during World War II. NATO aeroplanes were stationed at German bases in the 1960s so it is possible that the source for this image was taken from a photo in a newspaper or magazine.

• Material: Oil on canvas
• Size: 110 x 130cm
• Frieder Burda Collection
• © Gerhard Richter

1965

In the 1960s Richter was producing paintings based on enlarged copies of black and white photographs that he would blur the details of, making them appear slightly out of focus. In combining this process with the use of family snapshots and images taken from newspapers and magazines, he attempted to empty painting of its historical baggage and of such conventional considerations as composition and content.

• Material: Oil on canvas
• Size: 169.5 x 169.5 cm
• Private Collection
• © Gerhard Richter

1970

Richter began producing a series of cityscapes from 1968. This painting shows a cityscape from an aerial viewpoint, as if from an aeroplane. His handling of paint seems to suggest a town that has been bombed. Richter was born in Dresden, a town which was bombed during a series of raids in 1945. Richter’s cityscapes reflect the changing face of European cities in the post-war period.

• Material: Oil on canvas
• Size: Oil on canvas
• Böckmann Collection
• © Gerhard Richter

1982

Kerze demonstrates the mastery of Richter’s photo-based paintings. The candle has been used as a traditional symbol of the still life throughout art history to represent fragility, the passing of time and mortality. This is part of the memento mori tradition (‘remember you must die’).  Richter began working on his candle paintings after a period in which he had been producing mainly abstracts. This shift in style is typical of Richter’s oeuvre.

• Material: Oil on canvas
• Size: 100 x 100 cm
• Frieder Burda Collection
• © Gerhard Richter

1999

Landscapes have played a central role in Richter’s oeuvre since the 1960s as seen with Schloß Neuschwanstein. While his early landscapes were often taken from images in magazines and newspapers, he later used his own photographs as source material for his paintings. It is likely that the subject of this photograph comes from one of Richter’s own photographs.

• Material: Oil and lacquer on canvas
• Size: 190 x 150 cm
• Private collection
• © Gerhard Richter

2004

Waldhaus is based on a photograph the artist took while on holiday in Engadin in Switzerland. The painting is dominated by dark green forest. Richter has returned to the motif of the forest throughout his oeuvre. He has noted that as a German he has a fascination with forests and as a young man, he even hoped to become a forest ranger. Richter’s landscapes allude to the tradition of German Romantic paintings.

• Material: Oil on canvas
• Size: 142 x 98 cm
• Private Collection
• © Gerhard Richter

1997

In order to produce his abstract paintings, Richter uses his own handmade squeegee which is repeatedly pulled over the entire canvas to layer and remove paint. Although this technique produces no brushstrokes, it reveals a complex layering of colour on the painting’s surface.

• Material: Oil on canvas
• Size: 200 x 180cm
• Frieder Burda Collection
• © Gerhard Richter