Painting Quotes by Gerhard Richter

I can't paint as well as Vermeer.

— Gerhard Richter

My paintings are wiser than I am.

— Gerhard Richter

All photographs are far more important than any painting.

— Gerhard Richter

Painting is another form of thinking.

— Gerhard Richter

When I look back on the townscapes now, they do seem to me to recall certain images of the destruction of Dresden…

— 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

They are specific places I have discovered here and there when I am on the road to take photos. I go especially…

— Gerhard Richter

I believe that he knew more what he was doing. I might be absolutely wrong about this, but that was my impression.

— 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

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

Everything has a reason, including the selection of the photos, which was not arbitrary but appropriate to the period, its highs and…

— 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

In 1981, I think, for the Kunsthalle in Düsseldorf. Before that I designed a mirror room for Kasper König's Westkunst show, but…

— Gerhard Richter

I find the Romantic period extraordinarily interesting. My landscapes have connections with Romanticism: at times I feel a real desire for, an…

— Gerhard Richter

The year is always correct, also the month, only the day can be another. But that occurs to me only in the…

— Gerhard Richter

The reason these paintings are destined for New York is not because I am disappointed about a lack of German interest, but…

— Gerhard Richter

I first came up with the idea for the colour-chart pictures back in 1966, and my preoccupation with the topic culminated in…

— Gerhard Richter

I wanted to say something different: the pictures are also a leave-taking, in several respects. Factually: these specific persons are dead; as…

— Gerhard Richter

The truth... When they have a similar structure to and are organized in as truthful a way as nature. When I look…

— Gerhard Richter

The urge to break with a tradition is only appropriate when you're dealing with an outdated, troublesome tradition: I never really thought…

— 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

The political topicality of my October paintings means almost nothing to me, but in many reviews it is the first or only…

— 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

But I have a problem with the term 'light'. I never in my life knew what to do with that. I know…

— Gerhard Richter

Pictures are the idea in visual or pictorial form; and the idea has to be legible, both in the individual picture and…

— Gerhard Richter

Of course I constantly despair at my own incapacity, at the impossibility of ever accomplishing anything, of painting a valid, true picture…

— 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

I'm trying to paint a picture of what I have seen and what moved me, as well as I can. That's all.

— 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 have always been structured. What has changed is the proportions. Now it is eight hours of paperwork and one of painting.

— 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

Perhaps the Doors, Curtains, Surface Pictures, Panes of Glass, etc. are metaphors of despair, prompted by the dilemma that our sense of…

— 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