Gerhard Richter Quotes on Art

Gerhard Richter is a famous German painter. He is best known for both his abstract paintings and his photorealistic paintings. Famous Gerhard Richter paintings include “Three Candles”, “Kerze”, “Zwei Liebespaare”, “Vierwaldstätter See”, “Abstraktes Bild”, “Woman Descending the Staircase”, “Domplatz, Mailand”, “1024 Colours”, and “Ema (Nude on a Staircase)”.

Mini biography: Born Gerhard Richter on the 9th of February, 1932 in Dresden, Saxony, Germany. His mother was Hildegard Schönfelder and his father Horst Richter was a school teacher. Richter married Marianne Eufinger in 1957 and they had one child together. He married his second with the German sculptor Isa Genzken in 1982. Gerhard married his third wife the painter Sabine Moritz and they had two children together.

List of Famous Gerhard Richter Art Quotes

Modern art has always only shown itself to me in trends and blowhards, so I couldn’t be a modern artist. There were always powerful movements or groups that today we don’t even know anymore. Gerhard Richter

I never worked at painting as if it were a job; it was always out of interest or for fun, a desire to try something. Gerhard Richter

I have to have a mental picture, an image, to start. I never reach this image, but it’s good to begin with it. Gerhard Richter

I can’t always reach the image in my mind.. almost never, in fact.. so that the abstract image I create is not quite there, but it gets to the point where I can leave it. Gerhard Richter

Form is all we have to help us cope with fundamentally chaotic facts and assaults. Formulating something is a great start. I trust form, trust my feeling or capacity to find the right form for something. Even if that is only by being well organized. That too is form. Gerhard Richter

How could one be in this world without feeling dismayed by it? Even if one paints flowers and gingerbread. Gerhard Richter

What I’m attempting in each picture is nothing other than this.. to bring together in a living and viable way, the most different and the most contradictory elements in the greatest possible freedom. Gerhard Richter

The tough part is always at the end. The beginning is always easy. Gerhard Richter

It has to do with the surface of both, which at the end becomes erased, or more erased. Before that, they were richer, full of things. Uglier, but more precise maybe. Gerhard Richter

As a German, I was familiar with the idea of not being worth anything. So painting wasn’t worth anything, I wasn’t worth anything, and then there were several other things that weren’t worth anything. But nevertheless I didn’t believe that. I believed in painting. Gerhard Richter

I blur things to make everything equally important and equally unimportant. I blur things so that they do not look artistic or craftsman-like but technological, smooth and perfect. I blur things to make all the parts a closer fit. Perhaps I also blur out the excess of unimportant information. Gerhard Richter

I would do different jobs. I didn’t want to have to make paintings I would be paid for, nor did I want to have to be nice to a dealer. Gerhard Richter

I always hated those artists who were so consistent and had this sort of unified development; I thought it was terrible. I never worked at painting as if it were a job; it was always out of interest or for fun, a desire to try something. Gerhard Richter

Gerhard Richter Self Portrait Painting

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Related or similar popular artists and celebrities include: Mark Rothko, Robert Ryman, Martin Kippenberger, Georg Baselitz and other Famous German Artists.