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Lot Essay
‘Since the heavens
and earth were parted,
it has stood, godlike,
lofty and noble,
the high peak of Fuji’
(Yamabe No Akahito, ‘On Looking at Mount Fuji’, 8th Century AD)
The present work is a spectacular example of Gerhard Richter’s Fuji series. This sequence of 110 unique paintings was conceived in 1996 to aid the Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, Munich, in its purchase of Atlas: the vast archive of photographs, newspaper clippings and sketches that Richter has been assembling since the mid-1960s. Displaying Richter’s distinctive abstract language on an intimate scale, each painting presents an exuberant fusion of red, orange and viridian oil paint on aluminium, overlaid with a squeegeed layer of white that drags the surface into symphonic splendour. Gliding transitions of colour are accompanied by abrupt breaks that unveil shimmering gradients beneath, revealing the electric dialogue between chance and control that distinguishes Richter’s abstract work.
The Fuji paintings echo the hues of Katsushika Hokusai’s iconic woodblock print series 36 Views of Mount Fuji (1826-1833), which is itself a suite of variations on a theme. Where Hokusai depicts the mountain from multiple viewpoints and in varying weather conditions, Richter exults in the infinite chromatic combinations and textural nuances occasioned by his process, which he has compared to a dialogue with the forces of the natural world. In the present work, Richter conjures a range of radiant encounters from his quartet of colours. Tides of seafoam green offset flickering pits of crimson depth; verdant canyons plunge through snowy swathes of white.
The mid-1990s is widely regarded as the peak of Richter’s abstract practice. As he enjoyed successive professional triumphs—including a major 1993-1994 European touring retrospective and the acquisition of his cycle October 18, 1977 by the Museum of Modern Art, New York in 1995—his Abstrakte Bilder became ever more self-assured, their colours and textures reaching complex, variegated and volatile new heights. The Fuji works are jewel-like encapsulations of this moment. The involvement of chance, Richter believed, freed the works from his own ‘constructions and inventions’ into an open field of boundless, proliferating potential. ‘Using chance is like painting nature—but which chance event, out of all the countless possibilities?’ (G. Richter, ‘Notes, 1985’, in D. Elger and H. U. Obrist, eds., Gerhard Richter: Text: Writings, Interviews and Letters 1961-2007, London 2009, pp. 140-141).
and earth were parted,
it has stood, godlike,
lofty and noble,
the high peak of Fuji’
(Yamabe No Akahito, ‘On Looking at Mount Fuji’, 8th Century AD)
The present work is a spectacular example of Gerhard Richter’s Fuji series. This sequence of 110 unique paintings was conceived in 1996 to aid the Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, Munich, in its purchase of Atlas: the vast archive of photographs, newspaper clippings and sketches that Richter has been assembling since the mid-1960s. Displaying Richter’s distinctive abstract language on an intimate scale, each painting presents an exuberant fusion of red, orange and viridian oil paint on aluminium, overlaid with a squeegeed layer of white that drags the surface into symphonic splendour. Gliding transitions of colour are accompanied by abrupt breaks that unveil shimmering gradients beneath, revealing the electric dialogue between chance and control that distinguishes Richter’s abstract work.
The Fuji paintings echo the hues of Katsushika Hokusai’s iconic woodblock print series 36 Views of Mount Fuji (1826-1833), which is itself a suite of variations on a theme. Where Hokusai depicts the mountain from multiple viewpoints and in varying weather conditions, Richter exults in the infinite chromatic combinations and textural nuances occasioned by his process, which he has compared to a dialogue with the forces of the natural world. In the present work, Richter conjures a range of radiant encounters from his quartet of colours. Tides of seafoam green offset flickering pits of crimson depth; verdant canyons plunge through snowy swathes of white.
The mid-1990s is widely regarded as the peak of Richter’s abstract practice. As he enjoyed successive professional triumphs—including a major 1993-1994 European touring retrospective and the acquisition of his cycle October 18, 1977 by the Museum of Modern Art, New York in 1995—his Abstrakte Bilder became ever more self-assured, their colours and textures reaching complex, variegated and volatile new heights. The Fuji works are jewel-like encapsulations of this moment. The involvement of chance, Richter believed, freed the works from his own ‘constructions and inventions’ into an open field of boundless, proliferating potential. ‘Using chance is like painting nature—but which chance event, out of all the countless possibilities?’ (G. Richter, ‘Notes, 1985’, in D. Elger and H. U. Obrist, eds., Gerhard Richter: Text: Writings, Interviews and Letters 1961-2007, London 2009, pp. 140-141).