Lot Essay
When Richter finished his studies in 1963, he accepted an offer from Heiner Friedrich to do contract work that guaranteed him an income for two years. Before starting he again made an assessment of his work to date and from then on he numbered all the pictures that stood up to his self-criticism. Consequently, only thirteen paintings from the years 1962-63 were included in the list (J. Harten, Gerhard Richter, Düsseldorf 1986, p. 30).
Alster (1963), one of these thirteen paintings, portrays a view of the Alster, a lake in the center of Hamburg. The original image is derived from a postcard showing a well-framed view of the city at night, one of many images in the artist's "atlas" of early source material. He has translated this commercial postcard into a dreamy and surreal image that is simultaneously representative and abstract.
Richter has maintained that he wants to paint a photograph, and not a painting after a photograph. It is his way of evading the term "realism," while simultaneously creating a discussion on replication. The photograph of Alster does not replicate the landscape which exists before the camera, just as Richter's painting does not replicate the photograph.
In Alster, Richter uses techniques that relate to photographic mistakes, such as the blurry, out-of-focus image. Like many of Richter's paintings from this period, it suggests a privileged view of a larger picture. The dream-like tree limbs hanging in the foreground before the shimmering lights of the waterfront freeze-frame our perception of this isolated view.
Alster is one of the earliest landscape paintings, a subject which became one of the most consistent in Richter's work. In spite of the technical origin of the image, Alster is painted with deliberate and lustrous brush strokes and a sensitivity to the geography he describes. That Richter is able to raise these critical and perceptual questions, while at the same time creating paintings which are visually brilliant and conceptually challenging, is a measure of his importance and continued force in Post-War art.
Alster (1963), one of these thirteen paintings, portrays a view of the Alster, a lake in the center of Hamburg. The original image is derived from a postcard showing a well-framed view of the city at night, one of many images in the artist's "atlas" of early source material. He has translated this commercial postcard into a dreamy and surreal image that is simultaneously representative and abstract.
Richter has maintained that he wants to paint a photograph, and not a painting after a photograph. It is his way of evading the term "realism," while simultaneously creating a discussion on replication. The photograph of Alster does not replicate the landscape which exists before the camera, just as Richter's painting does not replicate the photograph.
In Alster, Richter uses techniques that relate to photographic mistakes, such as the blurry, out-of-focus image. Like many of Richter's paintings from this period, it suggests a privileged view of a larger picture. The dream-like tree limbs hanging in the foreground before the shimmering lights of the waterfront freeze-frame our perception of this isolated view.
Alster is one of the earliest landscape paintings, a subject which became one of the most consistent in Richter's work. In spite of the technical origin of the image, Alster is painted with deliberate and lustrous brush strokes and a sensitivity to the geography he describes. That Richter is able to raise these critical and perceptual questions, while at the same time creating paintings which are visually brilliant and conceptually challenging, is a measure of his importance and continued force in Post-War art.