Home > Art Blog > Gerhard Richter – Blur Prints

Gerhard Richter – Blur Prints

Gerhard Richter created various painting pictures from black-and-white photographs during the 1960s and early 1970s.

 

P2 Haggadah by Gerhard Richter
P2 Haggadah by Gerhard Richter

 

From his writings, the following refer to quotations regarding photography, its relationship with painting, and the “blur”:

“The photograph is the most perfect picture. It does not change; it is absolute, and therefore autonomous, unconditional, devoid of style. Both in its ways of informing, and in what it informs of, it is my source.”
“I’m not trying to imitate a photograph; I’m trying to make one. And if I disregard the assumption that a photograph is a piece of paper exposed to light, then I am practicing photography by other means.”
“I don’t create blurs. Blurring is not the most important thing; nor is it an identity tag for my pictures. When I dissolve demarcations and create transition, this is not in order to destroy the representation, or to make it more artistic or less precise. The flowing transitions, the smooth equalizing surface, clarify the content and make the representation credible (an “alla prima” impasto would be too reminiscent of painting, and would destroy the illusion).”
“I blur things to make everything equally important and equally unimportant. I blur things so that they do not look artistic or craftsmanlike 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.”

 

P17 Tulips by Gerhard Richter
P17 Tulips by Gerhard Richter

 

Richter began making prints in 1965. He was most active before 1974, only completing sporadic projects since that time. In the period 1965–1974, Richter made most of his prints (more than 100), of the same or similar subjects in his paintings. He has explored a variety of photographic printmaking processes – screenprint, photolithography, and collotype – in search of inexpensive mediums that would lend a “non-art” appearance to his work. He stopped working in print media in 1974, and began painting from photographs he took himself.

 

Gerhard Richter Prints

View available Gerhard Richter prints here.