“What I find very beautiful is that these watercolors have so many stories to tell: almost as in a fairytale, one can recognize figures, battling serpents, red giants, boulders and clouds…”
—Gerhard RichterGerhard Richter’s Untitled (20 OKT. 92) is broadly structured around a primary color palette. It guides the viewer from a buttery yellow at left, to a fiery crimson red dominating the center, and lastly to a rich ultramarine blue along the right side of the sheet. Anchoring the work are splashes of white and black, juxtaposed against the pure colored washes of the background. Richter’s strong hold of the medium is at its most evident in this work, not only in his semi-translucent layers – where seemingly incompatible colors such as black and yellow are layered to create a veil-like effect – but also in his command of a wet-on-wet technique, resulting in an explosive and beautiful amalgamation of color. Through his knowledge of color theory and mastery of the medium, Richter creates visual harmonies which are at once calculated and unpredictable.
Considered one of the world’s greatest living painters, Richter has spent over half a century experimenting with a wide range of styles and techniques. Although the artist neglected watercolor early in his career, he slowly warmed to the medium, embarking on his first series while working in a small hotel room in Switzerland. The resulting works are smaller than the present work, often done on half sheets of writing paper, undulated and buckled from the wet paint. For Richter, this was intentional, a means to reject a certain “preciousness” that he felt was often associated with the medium. As he noted, “I didn’t want to make beautiful watercolors but to attempt something or other.”i
Watercolor was widely considered a form of low art in the post-war climate. Indeed, Richter recalls how watercolor did not belong to the classic course of study while at the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts from 1951–1956, recalling that he did not have many watercolorists whom he regarded as models. One of the few artists he did admire in his use of the medium was Blinky Palermo, a friend of his from Düsseldorf. Richter mentions having hung Palermo’s works in his room and even traded watercolors with him. “His constructive pictures have remained in my memory because… I can’t produce such a thing. There was an aesthetic quality which I loved and which I couldn’t produce, but I was happy that such a thing existed in the world.”ii In contrast to Palermo’s watercolors, Richter’s are less fragile, almost “destructive;” yet this destruction is not in the calamitous sense of the word. In fact, it could be interpreted as the direct opposite of construction – a foil to Palermo’s beautiful clarity, Richter’s watercolors revel in confusion and illusionism. In works such as Untitled (20 OKT. 92), Richter succeeds in “destroying” the notion of the beautiful watercolor by creating a work which takes the medium to new heights.
Blinky Palermo, Untitled, 1964, Dia Art Foundation, New York. Artwork: © Blinky Palermo/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York i Dieter Schwarz, Gerhard Richter Acquarelle / Watercolors 1964–1997, Dusseldorf, 1999, p. 20.
ii Ibid, p. 21.
來源
紐約Sperone Westwater畫廊
紐約Barbara Mathes畫廊
私人收藏（購自上述來源）
現藏者繼承自上述來源藝術家簡介
格哈特．里希特
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.
重要馬里蘭州收藏
108
《無題（92年10月20日）》
款識：Richter 20.okt.92（左上方）Richter Okt. 92（畫背）
水彩 紙本
11 3/4 x 15 3/4 英吋 (29.8 x 40 公分)
1992年10月20日作，此作品將被納入由德勒斯登國家藝術收藏館格哈特．里希特文獻庫編錄的水彩作品全集。
估價
$200,000 - 300,000
成交價$215,900
Annie Dolan
日間拍賣（上午部分）拍賣主管暨專家
+1 212 940 1288
adolan@phillips.com
20th Century & Contemporary Art Day Sale, Morning Session
紐約拍賣 2023年11月15日
126
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137
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145
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