Provenance
Galerie M. Bochum, Berlin; Private Collection, New York
Catalogue Essay

“When I first painted a number of canvases grey all over (about eight years ago), I did so because I did not know what to paint, or what there might be to paint: so wretched a start could lead to nothing meaningful. As time went on, however, I observed differences of quality among the grey surfaces – and also that these betrayed nothing of the destructive motivation that lay behind them. The pictures began to teach me. By generalizing a personal dilemma, they resolved it. Destitution became a constructive statement; it became relative perfection, and therefore painting. Grey. It makes no statement whatever; it evokes neither feelings nor associations; it is really neither visible nor invisible.
“Its inconspicuousness gives it the capacity to mediate, to make visible, in a positively illusionistic way, like a photograph. It has the capacity that no other colour has, to make ‘nothing’ visible. To me, grey is the welcome and only possible equivalent for indifference, non-commitment, absence of opinion, absence of shape. But grey, like formlessness and the rest, can be real only as an idea, and so all I can do is create a colour nuance that means grey but is not it.
“The painting is then a mixture of grey as a fiction and grey as a visible, designated area of colour. Finally; this kind of reductionist painting fascinates me in general, because I believe that it is a highly scrupulous and cautious attempt to achieve correctness, or rather definitiveness, in painting; that it pursues a quality which tends towards the valid and the universal. This seems to me important, in the face of a mindless, proliferating productivity that becomes less and less definitive.”
(Gerhard Richter, ‘Letter to E. de Wilde’, 1975, quoted in H.-U. Obrist, ed., Gerhard Richter, The Daily Practice of Painting, London 1995, pp. 82 – 83).
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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17

Gerhard Richter

Graues Bild I

1971
Oil on paper mounted on panel.
85.7 x 61 cm (33 3/4 x 24 in).

Signed and dated 'Gerhard Richter Sept. 1971' on the reverse.

Estimate
£80,000 - 120,000 ‡♠

Sold for £91,250

Contemporary Art Evening Sale

29 June 2010
London

1
Johannes Kahrs
Hand
Estimate £60,000 - 80,000 ‡♠
Sold for £61,250
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2
Urs Fischer
Untitled (Nurnberg)
Estimate £150,000 - 200,000
Sold for £133,250
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3
Anselm Reyle
Untitled
Estimate £70,000 - 90,000 ‡♠
Sold for £99,650
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4
Ugo Rondinone
air/ gets/ into/ everything/ even/ nothing
Estimate £200,000 - 300,000
Sold for £361,250
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5
Andy Warhol
Disaster (Retrospective Series)
Estimate £150,000 - 250,000 ‡
Sold for £157,250
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6
Matthew Day Jackson
Gimme Shelter #2
Estimate £100,000 - 150,000
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7
Roni Horn
When Dickinson Shut Her Eyes, no. 1259
Estimate £150,000 - 200,000
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8
Thomas Schütte
Doppelkopf (Double Head)
Estimate £400,000 - 600,000 ‡♠
Sold for £481,250
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9
Hermann Nitsch
Schüttbild (Splatter Painting)
Estimate £25,000 - 35,000 ♠
Sold for £54,050
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10
Andy Warhol
Hamburger Michel
Estimate £200,000 - 300,000 ‡
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11
Olafur Eliasson
Snow crystal roof
Estimate £70,000 - 90,000 ‡♠
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12
Anselm Kiefer
Untitled (Constellation Book)
Estimate £180,000 - 250,000 ‡♠
Sold for £193,250
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13
Joseph Kosuth
Meaning (Art as idea as idea)
Estimate £50,000 - 70,000
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14
Jean-Michel Basquiat
Ghost
Estimate £120,000 - 180,000 ‡
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15
Andy Warhol
Portrait of Joseph Beuys
Estimate £180,000 - 220,000 ‡
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16
Josef Albers
Homage to the Square
Estimate £80,000 - 120,000
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17
Gerhard Richter
Graues Bild I
Estimate £80,000 - 120,000 ‡♠
Sold for £91,250
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18
Roy Lichtenstein
Prop for a Film
Estimate £500,000 - 700,000 ‡
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19
Donald Judd
Untitled (92-4 Ballantine)
Estimate £200,000 - 300,000
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20
Bridget Riley
Out There
Estimate £400,000 - 500,000 ‡♠
Sold for £445,250
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21
Gilbert & George
Damned Buddleia
Estimate £150,000 - 200,000 ♠
Sold for £169,250
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22
Tony Cragg
Conical Flask
Estimate £40,000 - 60,000 ♠
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23
Salvatore Scarpitta
Trapped Canvas
Estimate £250,000 - 350,000
Sold for £409,250
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24
Arnaldo Pomodoro
Sfera con sfera (Sphere within sphere)
Estimate £250,000 - 350,000 ♠
Sold for £265,250
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25
Emilio Vedova
Ciclo
Estimate £400,000 - 600,000
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26
Antoni Tàpies
Grey between Brackets
Estimate £70,000 - 90,000 ‡♠
Sold for £79,250
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27
Juan Muñoz
Untitled
Estimate £60,000 - 80,000
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28
Wangechi Mutu
Untitled
Estimate £50,000 - 70,000 ‡
Sold for £82,850
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29
Georg Baselitz
Scarecrow (Eagle)
Estimate £150,000 - 200,000 ♠
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30
Li Songsong
Gift (diptych)
Estimate £150,000 - 200,000 †
Sold for £169,250
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31
Zheng Guogu
Waterfall
Estimate £40,000 - 60,000 †
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32
Liu Wei
Swimmers
Estimate £50,000 - 70,000 ‡
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33
Yang Shaobin
Fun
Estimate £80,000 - 120,000
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34
Wang Guangyi
Prada
Estimate £120,000 - 180,000 ‡
Sold for £109,250
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35
Tom Wesselmann
Study for Pat nude
Estimate £150,000 - 200,000 ‡
Sold for £159,650
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36
Keith Haring
Untitled
Estimate £150,000 - 200,000
Sold for £157,250
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37
Damien Hirst
Bipyridinium Dibromind-N, N-Tetremethylene
Estimate £90,000 - 120,000 ‡♠
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38
Thomas Ruff
Substrat 13 I
Estimate £50,000 - 70,000 ♠
Sold for £61,250
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39
Sarah Morris
William Morris (Los Angeles)
Estimate £50,000 - 70,000 ♠
Sold for £55,250
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40
Gilbert & George
MIX
Estimate £60,000 - 80,000 ♠
Sold for £73,250
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41
Anselm Reyle
Untitled
Estimate £30,000 - 40,000 ♠
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42
Iván Navarro
Record
Estimate £35,000 - 45,000 Ω♠
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43
Gavin Turk
Death of Che
Estimate £60,000 - 80,000 ♠†
Sold for £67,250
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44
Jim Lambie
The Doors
Estimate £25,000 - 35,000 ♠
Sold for £27,500
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45
Tim Noble and Sue Webster
Forever
Estimate £150,000 - 250,000 Ω♠
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Contemporary Art Evening Sale

29 June 2010 London

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Provenance

Catalogue Essay

Artist Biography

Gerhard Richter

17

Gerhard Richter

Graues Bild I

Contemporary Art Evening Sale

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29 June 2010
London