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

On View

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

More from this Artist

Browse Related Artwork

Untitled

Robert Morris

Untitled

Brice Marden

Abstract Street Scene

Ilya Narovlyanski

Coffer

Mimi Hart Silver

Lion and Acrobat

Byron Browne

Orde Verde, 23/50, 1965

Stanley William Hayter

Paper Self

Abelardo Morell

Untitled

Annette Cone-Skelton

Masked Woman

Richard Lindner