Lot Essay
"I like to compare my process of making art to the composing of music. There, all expression has been subjugated to the structure and is not simply shouted. That is why my paintings take such a long time. I interrupt the progress of one painting and return to it after a longer pause to make sure that the painting will not be all in one mood, but be more carefully controlled." (In: "The Print Collector's Newsletter", vol. 16, Dorothea Dietrich, Gerhard Richter: An Interview, September-October 1985, p. 128).
Few paintings exemplify this belief better than Hecke. Dating from 1982, it is one of the most vibrant examples of Richter's free abstract style developed in the early 1980s - a style still dominating his work today. Hecke is an explosion of complex overlaying, enhanced with thick impasto resulting in a rich polychromatic composition which appears to be spontaneous but in fact is a carefully reworked exercise.
Richter will begin a new group of paintings by placing a number of blank canvases around his studio. He will then work on several or all simultaneously. First, geometric forms are introduced as if floating without a particular composition in the canvas, then a large brushstroke or a track of colour drawn out with a squeegee is added. Layer over layer is added and spread on the canvas with spatulas of different sizes. Each painting will continuously be transformed and at each stage are quite beautiful but gradually the stages are obliterated and are only considered finished "when there is no more that I can do to them, when they exceed me, or they have something that I can no longer keep up with" (Terry Neff, Gerhard Richter Paintings, London 1988, p. 108).
We are fortunate in the case of Hecke in that its early incarnation has been rarely captured for posterity in the first Catalogue Raisonné, only to reappear in its finished state in the second version of the publication.
The green background dominating Hecke perhaps alludes to the title which translated into English means Hedge. Although not representative of the natural world, there is a concrete reality in Richter's abstract paintings which allow colour and structure to stand alone and tangible ideas are indicated through the titles. Having used a figurative style throughout his career, Richter does not view this change in style as a break with the past, but rather as an evolution implying that the abstract paintings are inspired by the natural world. As Richter explains, "When we describe a process, draw up an invoice or take a photograph of a tree we are creating models; without these we would know nothing of reality, we would be animals. Abstract pictures are fictitious models because they illustrate a reality that we can neither see nor describe, but whose existance we can infer. These we describe with negative concepts: un-known, inconceivable, in-finite, and for the millenia we portrayed them in surrogate pictures as heaven, hell, gods and devils. With abstract painting we created for ourselves a better possibility of approaching what is non-visual, with all the means available to art." (Ex. Cat. Documenta 7, Kassel 1982).
Few paintings exemplify this belief better than Hecke. Dating from 1982, it is one of the most vibrant examples of Richter's free abstract style developed in the early 1980s - a style still dominating his work today. Hecke is an explosion of complex overlaying, enhanced with thick impasto resulting in a rich polychromatic composition which appears to be spontaneous but in fact is a carefully reworked exercise.
Richter will begin a new group of paintings by placing a number of blank canvases around his studio. He will then work on several or all simultaneously. First, geometric forms are introduced as if floating without a particular composition in the canvas, then a large brushstroke or a track of colour drawn out with a squeegee is added. Layer over layer is added and spread on the canvas with spatulas of different sizes. Each painting will continuously be transformed and at each stage are quite beautiful but gradually the stages are obliterated and are only considered finished "when there is no more that I can do to them, when they exceed me, or they have something that I can no longer keep up with" (Terry Neff, Gerhard Richter Paintings, London 1988, p. 108).
We are fortunate in the case of Hecke in that its early incarnation has been rarely captured for posterity in the first Catalogue Raisonné, only to reappear in its finished state in the second version of the publication.
The green background dominating Hecke perhaps alludes to the title which translated into English means Hedge. Although not representative of the natural world, there is a concrete reality in Richter's abstract paintings which allow colour and structure to stand alone and tangible ideas are indicated through the titles. Having used a figurative style throughout his career, Richter does not view this change in style as a break with the past, but rather as an evolution implying that the abstract paintings are inspired by the natural world. As Richter explains, "When we describe a process, draw up an invoice or take a photograph of a tree we are creating models; without these we would know nothing of reality, we would be animals. Abstract pictures are fictitious models because they illustrate a reality that we can neither see nor describe, but whose existance we can infer. These we describe with negative concepts: un-known, inconceivable, in-finite, and for the millenia we portrayed them in surrogate pictures as heaven, hell, gods and devils. With abstract painting we created for ourselves a better possibility of approaching what is non-visual, with all the means available to art." (Ex. Cat. Documenta 7, Kassel 1982).