Abstract Painting (849-2)
Gerhard Richter
German, born 1932
Details
Title
Abstract Painting (849-2)
Artist/Maker
Gerhard Richter (German, born 1932)
Date
1997
Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
102 3/8 × 133 7/8 inches
Credit
Purchase with funds from Alfred Austell Thornton in memory of Leila Austell Thornton and Albert Edward Thornton, Sr., and Sarah Miller Venable and William Hoyt Venable
Accession #
1999.39
Location
Currently not on view
In Abstract Painting (849 2) it is clear that Richter’s approach to abstract painting emphasizes a process of alternate generation and destruction in which chance plays a vital role. Tension between this binary of construction and deconstruction imbues Abstract Painting (849 2) with a somewhat brusque, casual, and mechanical feel. Richter remarks, “Any thoughts on my part about the ‘construction’ of a picture are false, and if the execution works, this is only because I partly destroy it, because it works in spite of everything—by not jarring and by not looking the way I planned.”
Image Copyright
© Gerhard Richter