The reason these paintings are destined for New York is not because I am disappointed about a lack of German interest, but… — Gerhard Richter Copy Share Image
Perhaps the Doors, Curtains, Surface Pictures, Panes of Glass, etc. are metaphors of despair, prompted by the dilemma that our sense of… — Gerhard Richter Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
Painting is consequently an almost blind, desperate effort, like that of a person abandoned, helpless, in totally incomprehensible surroundings. — Gerhard Richter Copy Share Image
Everything has a reason, including the selection of the photos, which was not arbitrary but appropriate to the period, its highs and… — Gerhard Richter Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
I find the Romantic period extraordinarily interesting. My landscapes have connections with Romanticism: at times I feel a real desire for, an… — Gerhard Richter Copy Share Image
The first colour charts were unsystematic. They were based directly on commercial colour samples. They were still related to Pop Art. In… — Gerhard Richter Copy Share Image
Unlike the photography and prints, I never catalogued, kept track of or exhibited the sketches. I sold some occasionally, but never saw… — Gerhard Richter Copy Share Image
Well, the beginning is actually quite easy, because I can still be quite free about the way I handle things - colours,… — Gerhard Richter Copy Share Image
The grey is certainly inspired by the photo-paintings, and, of course, it's related to the fact that I think grey is an… — Gerhard Richter Copy Share Image
If, while I'm painting, I distort or destroy a motif, it is not a planned or conscious act, but rather it has… — Gerhard Richter Copy Share Image
Suddenly, I saw it in a new way, as a picture that offered me a new view, free of all the conventional… — Gerhard Richter Copy Share Image
Perhaps the choice is a negative one, in that I was trying to avoid everything that touched on well-known issues - or… — Gerhard Richter Copy Share Image
Painting is the making of an analogy for something non-visual and incomprehensible - giving it form and bringing it within reach. And… — Gerhard Richter Copy Share Image
The year is always correct, also the month, only the day can be another. But that occurs to me only in the… — Gerhard Richter Copy Share Image
When I paint from a photograph, conscious thinking is eliminated. I don't know what I am doing. My work is far closer… — Gerhard Richter Copy Share Image
I believe in painting and I believe in eating too. What can we do? We have to eat, we have to paint,… — Gerhard Richter Copy Share Image
The smudging makes the paintings a bit more complete. When they're not blurred, so many details seem wrong, and the whole thing… — Gerhard Richter Copy Share Image
In truth, factual information - names or dates - have never interested me much. Those things are like an alien language that… — Gerhard Richter Copy Share Image
Talk about painting: there's no point. By conveying a thing through the medium of language, you change it. You construct qualities that… — Gerhard Richter Copy Share Image
When I begin, theoretically and practically I can smear anything I want on the canvas. Then there's a condition I have to… — Gerhard Richter Copy Share Image
People won't stop painting, just as they won't stop making music or dancing. This is a facility we have. Children don't stop… — Gerhard Richter Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
Illusion - or rather appearance, semblance - is the theme of my life (could be theme of speech welcoming freshmen to the… — Gerhard Richter Copy Share Image
Family photos, pictures of groups, those are truely wonderful. And they are just as good as the old masters, just as rich… — Gerhard Richter Copy Share Image
I like everything that has no style: dictionaries, photographs, nature, myself and my paintings. (Because style is violent, and I am not… — Gerhard Richter Copy Share Image
The truth... When they have a similar structure to and are organized in as truthful a way as nature. When I look… — Gerhard Richter Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
I believe I am looking for rightness. My work has so much to do with reality that I wanted to have a… — Gerhard Richter Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
My pictures are devoid of objects; like objects, they are themselves objects. This means that they are devoid of content, significance or… — Gerhard Richter Copy Share Image
I think everybody starts out by seeing a few works of art and wanting to do something like them. You want to… — Gerhard Richter Copy Share Image
The political topicality of my October paintings means almost nothing to me, but in many reviews it is the first or only… — Gerhard Richter Copy Share Image
I started doing 'figures', then, one day, all of a sudden, I started doing abstraction. And then I started doing both. But… — Gerhard Richter Copy Share Image
Contact with like-minded painters - a group means a great deal to me: nothing comes in isolation. We have worked out our… — Gerhard Richter Copy Share Image
The painter sees the semblance of things and repeats it. That is, without fabricating the things himself, he fabricates their semblance; and,… — Gerhard Richter Copy Share Image
Photography has almost no reality; it is almost a hundred per cent picture. And painting always has reality: you can touch the… — Gerhard Richter Copy Share Image
Art shows us how to see things that are constructive and good, and to be an active part of that. — Gerhard Richter Copy Share
They are specific places I have discovered here and there when I am on the road to take photos. I go especially to take… — Gerhard Richter Copy Share
To me, grey is the welcome and only possible equivalent for indifference, noncommitment, absence of opinion, absence of shape. But grey, like formlessness and… — Gerhard Richter Copy Share
Now that we do not have priests and philosophers any more, artists are the most important people in the world. — Gerhard Richter Copy Share
Yes, we were amazed when that happened. It was a real joke to us. Konrad Lueg and I did a Happening, and we used… — Gerhard Richter Copy Share
A work of art is itself an object, first of all, and so manipulation is unavoidable: it's a prerequisite. But I needed the greater… — Gerhard Richter Copy Share
The photograph is the only picture that can truly convey information, even if it is technically faulty and the object can barely be identified.… — Gerhard Richter Copy Share
Perhaps the choice is a negative one, in that I was trying to avoid everything that touched on well-known issues - or any issues… — Gerhard Richter Copy Share
Gray is the color... the most important of all... absent of opinion, nothing, neither/nor. — Gerhard Richter Copy Share
You can compare it to dreams: you have a very specific and individual pictorial language that you either accept or that you can translate… — Gerhard Richter Copy Share
What attracted me about my mirrors was the idea of having nothing manipulated in them. A piece of bought mirror. Just hung there, without… — Gerhard Richter Copy Share
But it is also untrue that I have nothing specific in mind. As with my landscapes: I see countless landscapes, photograph barely 1 in… — Gerhard Richter Copy Share
My landscapes are not only beautiful or nostalgic, with a Romantic or classical suggestion of lost Paradises, but above all 'untruthful'... — Gerhard Richter Copy Share
I have always been structured. What has changed is the proportions. Now it is eight hours of paperwork and one of painting. — Gerhard Richter Copy Share
