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Lot Essay
Throughout his career, Gerhard Richter has always remained loyal to the tradition of panel painting. After a producing strong body of works based on the photographic representation of banal, everyday images using oil on canvas, he turned in the late 1960's to a small series of colour charts. In discussing the process of creating '1024 Farben', Richter stated:
"In order to represent all extant colour shades in one painting, I worked out a system which - starting from the three primaries, plus grey - made possible a continual subdivision (differentiation) through equal gradations: 4 x 4 = 16 x 4 = 64 x 4 = 256 x 4 = 1024. The multiplier 4 was necessary because I wanted to keep the image size, the square size and the number of squares in a constant proportion to each other. To use more than 1024 tones (4096, for instance) seemed pointless, since the difference between one shade and the next would no longer have been detectable. The arrangement of the colours on the squares was done by a random process, to obtain a diffuse, undifferentiated overall effect, combined with stimulating detail. The rigid grid precludes the generation of figurations, although with an effort these can be detected. This aspect of artificial naturalism fascinated me..." (In: 'The Daily Practice of Painting: Writings 1962-1993', London 1995, pp. 81-82).
The Colour Chart paintings, created between 1966 and 1974, are amongst Richter's most visibly conceptual works, though in essence they share much of the same concerns voiced in his photo-based works. Representation and the implications of painting within a world of mechanically reproducible images remains a constant issue running throughout the artist's oeuvre. Defining the practice of painting at a time in which Conceptual Art and Minimalism were attempting to call its validity into question, Richter found a characteristically elegant solution. By denying the painting the visible traits of the artist's factura, in a sense scientifically detaching himself from the creative process and exploring freely all facets of visual representation, Richter's work transcends style.
"In order to represent all extant colour shades in one painting, I worked out a system which - starting from the three primaries, plus grey - made possible a continual subdivision (differentiation) through equal gradations: 4 x 4 = 16 x 4 = 64 x 4 = 256 x 4 = 1024. The multiplier 4 was necessary because I wanted to keep the image size, the square size and the number of squares in a constant proportion to each other. To use more than 1024 tones (4096, for instance) seemed pointless, since the difference between one shade and the next would no longer have been detectable. The arrangement of the colours on the squares was done by a random process, to obtain a diffuse, undifferentiated overall effect, combined with stimulating detail. The rigid grid precludes the generation of figurations, although with an effort these can be detected. This aspect of artificial naturalism fascinated me..." (In: 'The Daily Practice of Painting: Writings 1962-1993', London 1995, pp. 81-82).
The Colour Chart paintings, created between 1966 and 1974, are amongst Richter's most visibly conceptual works, though in essence they share much of the same concerns voiced in his photo-based works. Representation and the implications of painting within a world of mechanically reproducible images remains a constant issue running throughout the artist's oeuvre. Defining the practice of painting at a time in which Conceptual Art and Minimalism were attempting to call its validity into question, Richter found a characteristically elegant solution. By denying the painting the visible traits of the artist's factura, in a sense scientifically detaching himself from the creative process and exploring freely all facets of visual representation, Richter's work transcends style.