Gerhard Richter - 20th Century & Contemporary Art Day Sale, Morning Session New York Wednesday, November 15, 2023 | Phillips
  • “We aren’t capable of viewing paintings without searching for their inherent similarity to what we’ve experienced and what we know. We want to see what they offer us, whether they threaten us or whether they’re nice to us, or whatever it might be.”
    —Gerhard Richter

    • Provenance

      Private Collection, Berlin
      Galerie Ludorff, Dusseldorf
      Acquired from the above by the present owner

    • Exhibited

      Dusseldorf, Galerie Ludorff, Wege der Abstraktion, September 15–November 15, 2007
      Dusseldorf, Galerie Ludorff, Gerhard Richter: Abstrakte Bilder, April 25–August 31, 2013, pp. 52–53 (illustrated)

    • Artist Biography

      Gerhard Richter

      German • 1932

      Powerhouse painter Gerhard Richter has been a key player in defining the formal and ideological agenda for painting in contemporary art. His instantaneously recognizable canvases literally and figuratively blur the lines of representation and abstraction. Uninterested in classification, Richter skates between unorthodoxy and realism, much to the delight of institutions and the market alike. 

      Richter's color palette of potent hues is all substance and "no style," in the artist's own words. From career start in 1962, Richter developed both his photorealist and abstracted languages side-by-side, producing voraciously and evolving his artistic style in short intervals. Richter's illusory paintings find themselves on the walls of the world's most revered museums—for instance, London’s Tate Modern displays the Cage (1) – (6), 2006 paintings that were named after experimental composer John Cage and that inspired the balletic 'Rambert Event' hosted by Phillips Berkeley Square in 2016. 

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Property from a Distinguished Private Collection

107

Studie für ein abstraktes Bild

signed, inscribed and dated "Richter IV 1978" on the reverse
oil on panel
12 1/4 x 18 5/8 in. (31.1 x 47.3 cm)
Painted in 1978.

Full Cataloguing

Estimate
$200,000 - 300,000 

Sold for $304,800

Contact Specialist

Annie Dolan
Specialist, Head of Sale, Morning Session
+1 212 940 1288
adolan@phillips.com

20th Century & Contemporary Art Day Sale, Morning Session

New York Auction 15 November 2023