Artist Quotes by Gerhard Richter

Art is the highest form of hope.

— Gerhard Richter

I can't paint as well as Vermeer.

— Gerhard Richter

My paintings are wiser than I am.

— Gerhard Richter

Painting is another form of thinking.

— Gerhard Richter

Now that we do not have priests and philosophers any more, artists are the most important people in the world.

— Gerhard Richter

Good art in general aspires to something, as a good painting aspires to something, almost spiritual or holy.

— Gerhard Richter

I don't believe in the reality of painting, so I use different styles like clothes: it's a way to disguise myself.

— Gerhard Richter

If the abstract paintings show my reality, then the landscapes and still-lifes show my yearning.

— Gerhard Richter

My work has so much to do with reality that I wanted to have a corresponding rightness. That excludes painting in imitation.

— Gerhard Richter

Art should be serious, not a joke. I dont like to laugh about art.

— Gerhard Richter

I never worked at painting as if it were a job; it was always out of interest or for fun, a desire…

— Gerhard Richter

Art is always to a large extent about need, despair and hopelessness.

— Gerhard Richter

I'm still very sure that painting is one of the most basic human capacities, like dancing and singing, that make sense, that…

— Gerhard Richter

Painting is consequently an almost blind, desperate effort, like that of a person abandoned, helpless, in totally incomprehensible surroundings.

— Gerhard Richter

I don't dare to think my paintings are great. I can't understand the arrogance of someone saying, 'I have created a big,…

— Gerhard Richter

With a brush you have control. The paint goes on the brush and you make the mark. From experience you know exactly…

— Gerhard Richter

I go to the studio every day, but I don't paint every day. I love playing with my architectural models. I love…

— Gerhard Richter

Every museum is full of nice things. That's the opposite of before. It was important things or serious things. Now we have…

— Gerhard Richter

To talk about paintings is not only difficult but perhaps pointless too. You can only express in words what words are capable…

— Gerhard Richter

I don't know what motivated the artist, which means that the paintings have an intrinsic quality. I think Goethe called it the…

— Gerhard Richter

I believe I am looking for rightness. My work has so much to do with reality that I wanted to have a…

— Gerhard Richter

Contact with like-minded painters - a group means a great deal to me: nothing comes in isolation. We have worked out our…

— Gerhard Richter

I started doing 'figures', then, one day, all of a sudden, I started doing abstraction. And then I started doing both. But…

— Gerhard Richter

I think everybody starts out by seeing a few works of art and wanting to do something like them. You want to…

— Gerhard Richter

Weeks go by, and I dont paint until finally I cant stand it any longer. I get fed up. I almost dont…

— Gerhard Richter

The painter sees the semblance of things and repeats it. That is, without fabricating the things himself, he fabricates their semblance; and,…

— Gerhard Richter

... landscapes or still-lifes I paint in between the abstract works; they constitute about one-tenth of my production. On the one hand…

— Gerhard Richter

I've never found anything to be lacking in a blurry canvas. Quite the contrary: you can see many more things in it…

— Gerhard Richter

Well, I don't believe there are subjects that can't be painted, but there are a lot of things that I personally can't…

— Gerhard Richter

Art is the ideal medium for making contact with the transcendental, or at least for getting close to it.

— Gerhard Richter

Art shows us how to see things that are constructive and good, and to be an active part of that.

— Gerhard Richter

Art should be serious, not a joke. I don't like to laugh about art.

— Gerhard Richter

I don't think I can do this - painting under observation. It's the worst thing there is, worse than being in the…

— Gerhard Richter

I often need a long time to understand things, to imagine a painting I might make.

— Gerhard Richter

I believe that the quintessential task of every painter in any time has been to concentrate on the essential.

— Gerhard Richter

Painting pictures is simply the official, the daily work, the profession, and in the case of the watercolours I can sooner afford…

— Gerhard Richter

Experience has proved that there is no difference between a so-called realist painting - of a landscape, for example - and an…

— Gerhard Richter

I do see myself as the heir to a vast, great, rich culture of painting - of art in general - which…

— Gerhard Richter

Maybe we didn't even have a chance. The message of American Pop Art was so powerful and so optimistic. But it was…

— Gerhard Richter

I don't how I can describe the quality that is only found in art (be it music, literature, painting, or whatever), this…

— Gerhard Richter