Editing Gerhard Richter (section)

==Art==

===Photo-paintings and the "blur"===
[[File:Hunting Party, 1966, Gerhard Richter at AIC 2023.jpeg|thumb|right|''Hunting Party'' (1966) at the [[Art Institute of Chicago]], in 2023]]

Richter created various painting pictures from black-and-white photographs during the 1960s and early 1970s, basing them on a variety of sources: newspapers and books, sometimes incorporating their captions, (as in ''Helga Matura'' (1966)); private snapshots; aerial views of towns and mountains, (''Cityscape Madrid'' (1968) and Alps (1968)); seascapes (1969–70); and a large multipart work made for the German Pavilion in the 1972 [[Venice Biennale]]. For ''[[48 Portraits|Forty-eight Portraits]]'' (1971–72), he chose mainly the faces of composers such as [[Gustav Mahler]] and [[Jean Sibelius]], and of writers such as [[H. G. Wells]] and [[Franz Kafka]].<ref name="MOMA4907">{{ cite museum| url=http://www.moma.org/collection/artist.php?artist_id=4907 |title=Gerhard Richter|institution =Museum of Modern Art | place= New York}}</ref>

From around 1964, Richter made a number of portraits of dealers, collectors, artists, and others connected with his immediate professional circle. Richter's two portraits of ''Betty'', his daughter, were made in 1977 and 1988 respectively; the three portraits titled ''IG'' were made in 1993 and depict the artist's second wife, [[Isa Genzken]]. ''Lesende'' (1994) portrays [[Sabine Moritz]], whom Richter married in 1995, shown absorbed in the pages of a magazine.<ref name=NPG>[http://www.npg.org.uk:8080/richter/exhib5.htm Gerhard Richter ''Portraits'', 26 February – 31 May 2009] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110924003610/http://www.npg.org.uk:8080/richter/exhib5.htm |date=24 September 2011 }} National Portrait Gallery, London</ref> Many of his realist paintings reflect on the history of Nazism, creating paintings of family members who had been members, as well as victims, of the Nazi party.<ref>[http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/exhibition/gerhard-richter-panorama Gerhard Richter: Panorama, 6 October 2011 – 8 January 2012] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141205020615/http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/exhibition/gerhard-richter-panorama |date=5 December 2014 }} [[Tate Modern]], London</ref> From 1966, as well as those given to him by others, Richter began using photographs he had taken as the basis for portraits.<ref name=NPG /> In 1975, on the occasion of a show in Düsseldorf, [[Gilbert & George]] commissioned Richter to make a portrait of them.<ref>[http://www.tate.org.uk/servlet/ViewWork?cgroupid=999999961&workid=98381&searchid=9679 Gerhard Richter: Gilbert, George (381-1, 381–2), 1975] Tate Collection</ref>

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.<ref name="tate">[http://www.tate.org.uk/servlet/ViewWork?cgroupid=999999961&workid=16594&searchid=10390&tabview=text Gerhard Richter, ''Elizabeth I'' (1966)] Tate Collection</ref> 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.<ref>[http://www.moma.org/collection/browse_results.php?criteria=O%3AAD%3AE%3A4907&page_number=2&template_id=1&sort_order=1 ''Elizabeth II'' by Gerhard Richter] MoMA | Collection</ref><ref>Weitman, Wendy (2004), [https://www.moma.org/collection/works/60106?sov_referrer=art_term&art_term_id=23 "Gerhard Richter: ''Mao,"''] in Deborah Wye, ''Artists and Prints: Masterworks from The Museum of Modern Art'', New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 2004, p. 180.</ref> He stopped working in print media in 1974, and began painting from photographs he took himself.<ref name="tate" />

While elements of landscape painting appeared initially in Richter's work early on in his career in 1963, the artist began his independent series of landscapes in 1968 after his first vacation, an excursion that landed him besotted with the terrain of [[Corsica]].<ref>[http://phillipsdepury.com/auctions/essay-detail.aspx?sn=NY010507&lotnum=53 Gerhard Richter: ''Vesuv (Vesuvius) 407'', 1976] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120330161102/http://phillipsdepury.com/auctions/essay-detail.aspx?sn=NY010507&lotnum=53 |date=30 March 2012 }} Philips de Pury & Company, New York</ref> Landscapes have since emerged as an independent work group in his oeuvre.<ref>[http://www.hatjecantz.de/controller.php?cmd=detail&titzif=00009101 Gerhard Richter: Landscapes] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061012203407/http://www.hatjecantz.de/controller.php?cmd=detail&titzif=00009101 |date=12 October 2006 }} Hatje Cantz Publishing</ref> According to Dietmar Elger, Richter's landscapes are understood within the context of traditional German Romantic Painting. They are compared to the work of [[Caspar David Friedrich]] (1774–1840). Friedrich is foundational to German landscape painting. Each artist spent formative years of their lives in [[Dresden]].{{sfn|Elger|2009|pp=173–174}} ''Große Teyde-Landschaft'' (1971) takes its imagery from similar holiday snapshots of the volcanic regions of [[Tenerife]].<ref>[http://www.christies.com/lotfinder/paintings/gerhard-richter-grobe-teyde-landschaft-5621966-details.aspx Gerhard Richter, ''Große Teyde-Landschaft'' (1971)] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121101011638/http://www.christies.com/lotfinder/paintings/gerhard-richter-grobe-teyde-landschaft-5621966-details.aspx |date=1 November 2012 }} [[Christie's]] Post-War & Contemporary Evening Sale, 14 November 2012, New York</ref>

''Atlas'' was first exhibited in 1972 at the Museum voor Hedendaagse Kunst in Utrecht under the title ''Atlas der Fotos und Skizzen''. It included 315 parts. The work has continued to expand, and was exhibited later in full form at the [[Lenbachhaus]] in Munich in 1989, the [[Museum Ludwig]] in Cologne in 1990, and at [[Dia Art Foundation]] in New York in 1995. ''Atlas'' continues as an ongoing, encyclopedic work composed of approximately 4,000 photographs, reproductions or cut-out details of photographs and illustrations, grouped together on approximately 600 separate panels.<ref>[http://www.diacenter.org/exhibitions/main/54 Gerhard Richter: Atlas] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110324071132/http://www.diacenter.org/exhibitions/main/54 |date=24 March 2011 }} Dia Art Foundation, New York, 27 April 1995 through 25 February 1996</ref>

In 1972, Richter embarked on a ten-day trip to [[Greenland]]. His friend [[Hanne Darboven]] was meant to accompany him, but instead, he traveled alone. His intention was to experience and record the desolate arctic landscape. In 1976, four large paintings, each titled ''Seascape'', emerged from the Greenland photographs.<ref name="ElgerP202">{{harvnb|Elger|2009|p=202}}</ref>

In 1982 and 1983, Richter made a series of paintings of ''Candles'' and ''Skulls'' that relate to a longstanding tradition of still life ''[[memento mori]]'' painting. Each composition is most commonly based on a photograph taken by Richter in his own studio. Influenced by old master vanitas painters such as [[Georges de La Tour]] and [[Francisco de Zurbarán]], the artist began to experiment with arrangements of candles and skulls placed in varying degrees of natural light, sitting atop otherwise barren tables. The Candle paintings coincided with his first large-scale abstract paintings, and represent the complete antithesis to those vast, colorful and playfully meaningless works. Richter has made only 27 of these still lifes.<ref name="economist.com">[[Sarah Thornton]] (8 October 2011), [http://www.economist.com/node/21531408 Selling Gerhard Richter – The bold standard] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170730023833/http://www.economist.com/node/21531408 |date=30 July 2017 }} ''[[The Economist]]''</ref> In 1995, the artist marked the 50th anniversary of the allied bombings of his hometown Dresden during the Second World War. His solitary candle was reproduced on a monumental scale and placed overlooking the River Elbe as a symbol of rejuvenation.<ref>[http://www.christies.com/lotfinder/gerhard-richter-kerze/5486853/lot/lot_details.aspx?from=salesummary&intObjectID=5486853&sid=90896414-1fa9-4028-970b-005d70a03195 Gerhard Richter, ''Kerze (Candle)'' (1982)] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304223208/http://www.christies.com/lotfinder/gerhard-richter-kerze/5486853/lot/lot_details.aspx?from=salesummary&intObjectID=5486853&sid=90896414-1fa9-4028-970b-005d70a03195 |date=4 March 2016 }} [[Christie's]] London, Post-War & Contemporary Art Evening Auction, 14 October 2011</ref> Richter has said that while painting this series, “I did experience feelings to do with contemplation, remembering, silence, and death.”<ref>{{Cite web |first=Tim |last=Brinkhof  |date=2024-07-22 |title=Eureka: The Deep Symbolism Behind Gerhard Richter's Candles |url=https://news.artnet.com/art-world/eureka-candle-gerhard-richter-2478256 |access-date=2024-07-22 |website=Artnet News |language=en-US}}</ref>

In a 1988 series of 15 ambiguous photo paintings entitled ''18 October 1977'', he depicted four members of the [[Red Army Faction]] (RAF), a German left-wing militant organization. These paintings were created from black-and-white newspaper and police photos. Three RAF members were found dead in their prison cells on 18 October 1977 and the cause of their deaths was the focus of widespread controversy.<ref>[http://moma.org/collection/browse_results.php?criteria=O%3ATA%3AE%3AT3%7CA%3ATA%3AE%3AT3&page_number=7&template_id=1&sort_order=1 Gerhard Richter: 18 October 1977] MoMA | Collection</ref> In the late 1980s, Richter had begun to collect images of the group which he used as the basis for the 15 paintings exhibited for the first time in Krefeld in 1989. The paintings were based on an official portrait of [[Ulrike Meinhof]] during her years as a radical journalist; on photographs of the arrest of [[Holger Meins]]; on police shots of [[Gudrun Ensslin]] in prison; on [[Andreas Baader]]'s bookshelves and the record player to conceal his gun; on the dead figures of Meinhof, Ensslin, and Baader; and on the funeral of Ensslin, Baader, and [[Jan-Carl Raspe]].

Since 1989, Richter has worked on creating new images by dragging wet paint over photographs. The photographs, not all taken by Richter himself, are mostly snapshots of daily life: family vacations, pictures of friends, mountains, buildings, and streetscapes.

Richter was flying to New York on 11 September 2001, but due to the [[9/11 attacks]], including on the [[World Trade Center (1973–2001)|World Trade Center]], his plane was diverted to [[Halifax, Nova Scotia]]. A few years later, he made one small painting specifically about the planes crashing into the [[World Trade Center (1973–2001)|World Trade Center]].<ref>Aidan Dunne (14 October 2011), [https://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/features/2011/1014/1224305749161.html From hot to cool on the Richter scale] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111018164720/http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/features/2011/1014/1224305749161.html |date=18 October 2011 }} ''[[The Irish Times]]''</ref> In ''September: A History Painting by Gerhard Richter'', [[Robert Storr (art academic)|Robert Storr]] situates Richter's 2005 painting ''September'' within a brand of anti-ideological thought that he finds throughout Richter's work. He considers how the ubiquitous photographic documentation of 11 September attacks affects the uniqueness of one's distinct remembrance of the events, and he offers a valuable comparison to Richter's ''18 October 1977'' cycle.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Gottlieb|first=Benjamin|title=Art Books in Review: Gerhard Richter is Speechless|journal=The Brooklyn Rail|date=February 2011|url=http://brooklynrail.org/2011/02/artseen/gerhard-richter-is-speechless|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130314111035/http://www.brooklynrail.org/2011/02/artseen/gerhard-richter-is-speechless|archive-date=14 March 2013}}</ref>

In the 2000s, Richter made a number of works that dealt with scientific phenomena. In 2003, he produced several paintings with the same title: ''Silicate''. Large oil-on-canvas pieces, these show latticed rows of light- and dark-grey blobs whose shapes quasi-repeat as they race across the frame, their angle modulating from painting to painting. They depict a photo, published in the ''[[Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung]]'', of a computer-generated simulacrum of reflections from the silicon dioxide found in insects' shells.<ref>Tom McCarthy (22 September 2011), [https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2011/sep/22/gerhard-richter-tate-retrospective-panorama?INTCMP=ILCNETTXT3487 Blurred visionary: Gerhard Richter's photo-paintings] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160314030742/http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2011/sep/22/gerhard-richter-tate-retrospective-panorama?INTCMP=ILCNETTXT3487 |date=14 March 2016 }} ''[[The Guardian]]''</ref>

In 2014, Richter created a cycle of four paintings using the [[Sonderkommando photographs]], which were taken in the [[Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp]] during the [[Holocaust]], titled [[Birkenau (painting)|''Birkenau'']].<ref>{{cite web |last1=Storr |first1=Robert |title=Gerhard Richter: Doubt |url=https://heni.com/talks/gerhard-richter |website=HENI Talks}}</ref> In October 2021, Gerhard Richter decided to make his ''Birkenau'' images permanently available to the [[International Auschwitz Committee]]. Currently, the cycle is on permanent display in an exhibition pavilion on the grounds of the [[International Youth Meeting Center in Oświęcim/Auschwitz]], around 2 kilometers from the [[Auschwitz II-Birkenau]] site. The pavilion was built according to a design by the artist.<ref>{{Cite web |date=27 October 2021 |title=Gerhard Richter überlässt seine "Birkenau"-Bilder dem Internationalen Auschwitz Komitee |url=https://www.deutschlandfunk.de/holocaust-gerhard-richter-ueberlaesst-seine-birkenau-bilder.1939.de.html?drn:news_id=1315966 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211027133428/https://www.deutschlandfunk.de/holocaust-gerhard-richter-ueberlaesst-seine-birkenau-bilder.1939.de.html?drn:news_id=1315966 |archive-date=27 October 2021 |access-date=6 March 2024 |website=[[Deutschlandfunk]]}}</ref> In 2024, an edition of the works as prints on metal plate, made and donated by Richter, went on display at the Centre.<ref name="grdn20240305">{{cite news |last1=Pyzik |first1=Agata |title=Painting the unpaintable: Gerhard Richter's most divisive work returns to Auschwitz |url=https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2024/mar/05/painting-the-unpaintable-gerhard-richters-most-divisive-work-returns-to-auschwitz |access-date=8 December 2024 |work=The Guardian|date=5 March 2024}}</ref>

===Abstract work===
Richter's early work ''Table'' (1962) consisted of a painting of a table, taken from a photograph in a magazine, with [[tachiste]] gestural marks overlapping. Those marks can be read as cancelling the photorealist representation, using haptic swirls of grey paint,<ref name="christies.com">[http://www.christies.com/lotfinder/paintings/gerhard-richter-abstraktes-bild-5559190-details.aspx Gerhard Richter, ''Abstraktes Bild 798-3'' (1993)] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120603121619/http://www.christies.com/lotfinder/paintings/gerhard-richter-abstraktes-bild-5559190-details.aspx |date=3 June 2012 }} Christie's Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Sale,
8 May 2012</ref> as well as a form of [[generativity]].<ref>{{cite news|url=https://heni.com/talks/gerhard-richter-drawings|author=Michael Newman|title=Gerhard Richter: Drawings|work=HENI Talks}}</ref>

In 1969, Richter produced the first of a group of grey [[monochrome]]s that consist exclusively of the textures resulting from different methods of paint application.

In 1976, Richter first gave the title ''Abstract Painting'' to one of his works. By presenting a painting without even a few words to name and explain it, he felt he was "letting a thing come, rather than creating it." In his abstract pictures, Richter builds up cumulative layers of non-representational painting, beginning with brushing big swaths of primary color onto canvas.<ref>Rachel Saltz (13 March 2012), [https://movies.nytimes.com/2012/03/14/movies/gerhard-richter-painting-a-documentary.html "An Artist at Work, Looking and Judging: ''Gerhard Richter Painting'', a Documentary"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120818224620/http://movies.nytimes.com/2012/03/14/movies/gerhard-richter-painting-a-documentary.html |date=18 August 2012 }}, ''[[The New York Times]]''</ref> The paintings evolve in stages, based on his responses to the picture's progress: the incidental details and patterns that emerge. Throughout his process, Richter uses the same techniques he uses in his representational paintings, blurring and scraping to veil and expose prior layers.<ref name="tate.org.uk">[http://www.tate.org.uk/servlet/ViewWork?cgroupid=999999961&workid=98385&searchid=9837 Gerhard Richter: ''Abstract Painting (809–3)'', 1994][[Tate]], London</ref>

From the mid-1980s, Richter began to use a homemade [[squeegee]] to rub and scrape the paint that he had applied in large bands across his canvases.<ref name="tate.org.uk"/> In an interview with Benjamin H.D. Buchloch in 1986, Richter was asked about his "Monochrome Grey Pictures and Abstract Pictures" and their connection with the artists [[Yves Klein]] and [[Ellsworth Kelly]]. The following are Richter's answers:
<blockquote>The Grey Pictures were done at a time when there were monochrome paintings everywhere. I painted them nonetheless. ... Not Kelly, but Bob Ryman, [[Brice Marden]], [[Alan Charlton (artist)|Alan Charlton]], [[Yves Klein]] and many others.{{sfn|Richter|Obrist|1995|p=153}}</blockquote>
In the 1990s the artist began to run his squeegee up and down the canvas in an ordered fashion to produce vertical columns that take on the look of a wall of planks.<ref name="tate.org.uk"/>

Richter's abstract work and its illusion of space developed out of his incidental process: an accumulation of spontaneous, reactive gestures of adding, moving, and subtracting paint. Despite unnatural palettes, spaceless sheets of color, and obvious trails of the artist's tools, the abstract pictures often act like windows through which we see the landscape outside. As in his representational paintings, there is an equalization of illusion and paint. In those paintings, he reduces worldly images to mere incidents of Art. Similarly, in his abstract pictures, Richter exalts spontaneous, intuitive mark-making to a level of spatial logic and believability.{{Citation needed|date=June 2015}}

''Firenze'' continues a cycle of 99 works conceived in the autumn of 1999 and executed in the same year and thereafter. This series belongs to the body of work of the overpainted photographs, or übermalte Fotographien, counting more than 2,000 pieces.<ref>{{cite book |editor1-last=Obrist |editor1-first=Hans Ulrich |editor2-last=Hage |editor2-first=Joe |title=Gerhard Richter. The Overpainted Photographs, A Comprehensive Catalogue |date=December 2024 |publisher=HENI Publishing |isbn=978-1-911736-16-5 |url=https://heni.com/publishing/gerhard-richter-the-overpainted-photographs}}</ref> ''Firenze'' consists of small paintings bearing images of the city of Florence, created by the artist as a tribute to the music of [[Steve Reich]] and the work of Contempoartensemble, a Florence-based group of musicians.<ref>[http://www.mariangoodman.com/exhibitions/2002-06-21_gerhard-richter/ Gerhard Richter ''Firenze''] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101023104716/http://www.mariangoodman.com/exhibitions/2002-06-21_gerhard-richter/ |date=23 October 2010 }} Marian Goodman Gallery, 21 June through 30 August 2002</ref>

After 2000, Richter made a number of works that dealt with scientific phenomena, in particular, with aspects of reality that cannot be seen by the naked eye.<ref>[http://www.tate.org.uk/servlet/ViewWork?cgroupid=999999961&workid=98386&searchid=9837 Gerhard Richter: ''Abstract Painting (Skin) (887–3)'' 2004][[Tate]], London</ref> In 2006, Richter conceived six paintings as a coherent group under the title ''Cage'', named after the American avant-garde composer [[John Cage]].<ref>[http://www.tate.org.uk/servlet/CollectionDisplays?venueid=2&roomid=4896 Gerhard Richter] Tate Modern, Collection Displays</ref> The ''Cage'' paintings are large works constructed from intersecting fields, lines, and swaths of uneven smears that reflect the broad squeegee tool which Richter drags across the canvases, before removing areas of paint to generate a subtractive method of concealing and revealing variegated layers and patches.<ref>Ekin Erkan (29 May 2021), [http://aeqai.com/main/2021/05/aleatory-aesthetics-appraising-the-aesthetics-of-chance-in-gerhard-richters-cage-paintings Aleatory Aesthetics: Appraising the Aesthetics of "Chance" in Gerhard Richter's Cage Paintings]. AEQAI. Accessed January 2022.</ref> In May 2002, Richter photographed 216 details of his abstract painting no. 648-2, from 1987. Working on a long table over a period of several weeks, Richter combined these 10 x 15&nbsp;cm details with 165 texts on the Iraq war, published in the German ''[[Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung]]'' newspaper on 20 and 21 March. This work was published in 2004 as a book entitled ''War Cut''.

In November 2008, Richter began a series in which he applied ink droplets to wet paper, using alcohol and lacquer to extend and retard the ink's natural tendency to bloom and creep. The resulting ''November'' sheets are regarded as a significant departure from his previous watercolours in that the pervasive soaking of ink into wet paper produced double-sided works.<ref>{{cite book |title=Gerhard Richter. November |date=2015 |publisher=HENI Publishing |location=London |isbn=978-0-9930103-1-6 |url=https://heni.com/publishing/gerhard-richter-november}}</ref> Sometimes, the uppermost sheets bled into others, generating a sequentially developing series of images.<ref>Alexander Adams (13 June 2013), [http://theartnewspaper.com/articles/At+the+top+of+his+game/29918 At the top of his game] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130810025954/http://theartnewspaper.com/articles/At+the+top+of+his+game/29918 |date=10 August 2013 }} ''[[The Art Newspaper]]''.</ref> In a few cases, Richter applied lacquer to one side of the sheet, or drew pencil lines across the patches of colour.<ref>Dieter Schwarz (14 February 2013), [https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/picture-preview-gerhard-richters-previously-unseen-november-series-8495683.html Picture preview: Gerhard Richter's previously unseen November series] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170202084715/http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/picture-preview-gerhard-richters-previously-unseen-november-series-8495683.html |date=2 February 2017 }} ''[[The Independent]]''.</ref>

===Color chart paintings===
As early as 1966, Richter had made paintings based on colour charts. For these works, he drew inspirations from using the charts as found objects, which arranged rectangles of colors in an apparently limitless variety of hues. Richter's experiments culminated in 1973-74 in a series of large-format pictures, such as ''256 Colours''.<ref name="MOMA4907" /> Between 1966 and 1974, Richter painted three series of ''Color Chart'' works, each growing more ambitious in its attempt to create meaning through the purely arbitrary arrangement of colors.<ref>[http://www.christies.com/LotFinder/lot_details.aspx?intObjectID=4288634 Gerhard Richter (b. 1932), 4096 Farben, Sale 1373] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121023193139/http://www.christies.com/LotFinder/lot_details.aspx?intObjectID=4288634 |date=23 October 2012 }} Christie's London, 11 May 2004</ref> The artist began his investigations into the complex permutations of color charts in 1966, with a small painting entitled ''10 Colors''.<ref>[http://www.philamuseum.org/collections/permanent/92487.html Gerhard Richter: 180 Farben (180 Colors)] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110207120241/http://philamuseum.org/collections/permanent/92487.html |date=7 February 2011 }} Philadelphia Museum of Art Collection</ref> The charts provided anonymous and impersonal source material, a way for Richter to disassociate color from any traditional, descriptive, symbolic or expressive end. When he began to make these paintings, Richter had his friend [[Blinky Palermo]] randomly call out colors, which Richter then adopted for his work. Chance thus plays its role in the creation of his first series.

Returning to color charts in the 1970s, Richter changed his focus from the readymade to the conceptual system, developing mathematical procedures for mixing colors and employing chance operations for their placement.<ref>[http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-liverpool/exhibition/colour-chart-reinventing-colour-1950-today ''Colour Chart: Reinventing Colour, 1950 to Today''] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141031023902/http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-liverpool/exhibition/colour-chart-reinventing-colour-1950-today |date=31 October 2014 }} Tate Liverpool, 29 May through 13 September 2009</ref> The range of the colors he employed was determined by a mathematical system for mixing the primary colors in graduated amounts. Each color was then randomly ordered to create the resultant composition and form of the painting. Richter's second series of Color Charts was begun in 1971 and consisted of only five paintings. In the final series of Color Charts which preoccupied Richter throughout 1973 and 1974, additional elements to this permutational system of color production were added in the form of mixes of a light grey, a dark gray and later, a green.

Richter's ''4900 Colours'' from 2007 consisted of bright monochrome squares that have been randomly arranged in a grid pattern to create stunning fields of kaleidoscopic color. It was produced at the same time he developed his design for the south transept window of [[Cologne Cathedral]]. ''4900 Colours'' consists of 196 panels in 25 colors that can be reassembled in 11 variations – from a single expansive surface to multiple small-format fields. Richter developed ''Version II'' – 49 paintings, each of which measures 97 by 97 centimeters – especially for the [[Serpentine Gallery]].<ref>[http://www.hatjecantz.de/controller.php?cmd=detail&titzif=00002344&lang=en Gerhard Richter: 4900 Colours] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110930021234/http://www.hatjecantz.de/controller.php?cmd=detail&titzif=00002344&lang=en |date=30 September 2011 }} Hatje Cantz Publishing, 2008</ref>

===Sculpture===
Richter began to use glass in his work in 1967, when he made ''Four Panes of Glass''.<ref>[http://www.tate.org.uk/servlet/ViewWork?cgroupid=999999961&workid=94054&searchid=9679 Gerhard Richter: 11 Panes, 2004] Tate Collection</ref> These plain sheets of glass could tilt away from the poles on which they were mounted at an angle that changed from one installation to the next. In 1970, he and [[Blinky Palermo]] jointly submitted designs for the sports facilities for the [[1972 Summer Olympics|1972 Olympic Games]] in Munich. For the front of the arena, they proposed an array of glass windows in twenty-seven different colors; each color would appear fifty times, with the distribution determined randomly. In 1981, for a two-person show with [[Georg Baselitz]] in Düsseldorf, Richter produced the first of the monumental transparent mirrors that appear intermittently thereafter in his oeuvre; the mirrors are significantly larger than Richter's paintings and feature adjustable steel mounts. For pieces such as ''Mirror Painting (Grey, 735-2)'' (1991), the mirrors were coloured grey by coating the back of the glass with pigment.<ref>[http://www.tate.org.uk/servlet/ViewWork?cgroupid=999999961&workid=98375&searchid=9837 Gerhard Richter: ''Mirror Painting (Grey, 735-2)'', 1991] [[Tate]], London</ref> Arranged in two rooms, Richter presented an ensemble of paintings and colored mirrors in a special pavilion designed in collaboration with architect Paul Robbrecht at [[Documenta]] 9 in Kassel in 1992.<ref>[http://www.diaart.org/exhibitions/introduction/93 Gerhard Richter] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101122134535/http://www.diaart.org/exhibitions/introduction/93 |date=22 November 2010 }}, Dia Art Foundation</ref>

In 2002, for the [[Dia Art Foundation]], Richter created a glass sculpture in which seven parallel panes of glass refract light and the world beyond, offering altered visions of the exhibition space; ''Spiegel I'' (Mirror I) and ''Spiegel II'' (Mirror II), a two-part mirror piece from 1989 that measures 7' tall and 18' feet long, which alters the boundaries of the environment and again changes one's visual experience of the gallery; and ''Kugel'' (Sphere), 1992, a stainless steel sphere that acts as a mirror, reflecting the space.<ref>[http://www.diacenter.org/exhibitions/pressrelease/27 Gerhard Richter and Jorge Pardo: Refraction] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110114163210/http://www.diacenter.org/exhibitions/pressrelease/27 |date=14 January 2011 }} Dia Art Foundation, 5 September 2002 through 15 June 2003</ref> Since 2002, the artist has created a series of three dimensional glass constructions, such as ''6 Standing Glass Panels'' (2002/2011).<ref>[http://www.mariangoodman.com/exhibitions/2012-09-12_gerhard-richter/ Gerhard Richter: Painting 2012, 12 September – 13 October 2012] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120919053246/http://www.mariangoodman.com/exhibitions/2012-09-12_gerhard-richter/ |date=19 September 2012 }} [[Marian Goodman Gallery]], New York</ref>

===Drawings===
In 2010, the [[Drawing Center]] showed ''Lines which do not exist'', a survey of Richter's drawings from 1966 to 2005, including works made using mechanical intervention such as attaching a pencil to an electric hand drill. It was the first career overview of Richter in the United States since ''40 Years of Painting'' at the [[Museum of Modern Art]] in 2002.<ref>{{cite news|last=Cotter|first=Holland|author-link=Holland Cotter|title=Building an Art of Virtuoso Ambiguity|work=[[The New York Times]]|date=9 September 2010|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/10/arts/design/10richter.html?pagewanted=all|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171213210611/http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/10/arts/design/10richter.html?pagewanted=all|archive-date=13 December 2017}}</ref> In a review of ''Lines which do not exist'', R. H. Lossin wrote in ''[[The Brooklyn Rail]]'': "Viewed as a personal (and possibly professional) deficiency, Richter's drawing practice consisted of diligently documenting something that didn't work—namely a hand that couldn't draw properly. ...Richter displaces the concept of the artist's hand with hard evidence of his own, wobbly, failed, and very material appendage."<ref>{{cite journal|last=Lossin|first=R.H.|title=Gerhard Richter: Lines which do not exist|journal=The Brooklyn Rail|date=October 2010|url=http://brooklynrail.org/2010/10/artseen/gerhard-richter-lines-which-do-not-exist|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130314174209/http://www.brooklynrail.org/2010/10/artseen/gerhard-richter-lines-which-do-not-exist|archive-date=14 March 2013}}</ref>

===Commissions===
Throughout his career, Richter has mostly declined lucrative licensing deals and private commissions.<ref name="The Top-Selling Living Artist" /> Measuring 9 by 9 ½ feet and depicting both the [[Milan Cathedral|Milan Duomo]] and the square's 19th-century [[Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II]], ''[[Domplatz, Mailand]]'' (1968) was a commission from [[Siemens]], and it hung in that company's offices in Milan from 1968 to 1998. (In 1998, Sotheby's sold it in London, where it fetched what was then a record price for Richter, $3.6 million).<ref>Carol Vogel (28 March 2013), [https://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/29/arts/design/stained-glass-and-a-psalter-at-the-getty-richter-at-auction.html More Richter At Auction] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170827211638/http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/29/arts/design/stained-glass-and-a-psalter-at-the-getty-richter-at-auction.html |date=27 August 2017 }}, ''[[The New York Times]]''</ref> In 1980, Richter and [[Isa Genzken]] were commissioned to design the König-Heinrich-Platz underground station in [[Duisburg]]; it was only completed in 1992. In 1986, Richter received a commission for two large-scale paintings – ''Victoria I'' and ''Victoria II'' – from the Victoria insurance company in Düsseldorf.{{sfn|Elger|2009|p=278}} In 1990, along with [[Sol LeWitt]] and [[Oswald Mathias Ungers]], he created works for the [[HypoVereinsbank|Bayerische Hypotheken- und Wechselbank]] in Düsseldorf. In 1998, he installed a wall piece based on the colours of [[Flag of Germany|Germany's flag]] in the rebuilt [[Reichstag building|Reichstag]] in Berlin. In 2012 he was asked to design the first page of the German newspaper ''[[Die Welt]]''.<ref>''[[Die Welt]]'' (20 September 2012), [https://www.welt.de/kultur/gallery109624783/Gerhard-Richter-produziert-seine-Welt-Ausgabe.html Gerhard Richter produziert seine ''Welt''-Ausgabe]</ref> In 2017 Richter designed the label of the 2015 [[Chateau Mouton Rothschild]]'s first wine of that year.<ref>''Decanter'' (21 November 2018), [http://www.decanter.com/wine-news/mouton-rothschild-2015-label-richter-380103/ Mouton Rothschild 2015 label design revealed] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171128144705/http://www.decanter.com/wine-news/mouton-rothschild-2015-label-richter-380103/ |date=28 November 2017 }}</ref>

===Church windows===
{{Main|Cologne Cathedral Window}}
[[File:Richter window Cologne Cathedral.jpg|thumb|upright|Gerhard Richter, ''[[Cologne Cathedral Window|Symphony of Light]]'', c. 2007; stained glass window in the [[Cologne Cathedral]], {{convert|20|m}} tall]]
In 2002, the same year as his [[MoMA]] retrospective, Richter was asked to [[Cologne Cathedral Window|design a stained glass window]] in the [[Cologne Cathedral]].
In August 2007, his window was unveiled. It is an {{convert|113|m2}} abstract collage of 11,500 [[pixel]]-like squares in 72 colors, randomly arranged by computer (with some symmetry), reminiscent of his 1974 painting ''4096 colours''. The artist waived any fee, and the costs of materials and mounting the window came to around €370,000 ($506,000), covered by donations from more than 1,000 people.<ref>[http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,502271,00.html Cologne Cathedral Gets New Stained-Glass Window] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110219160705/http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,502271,00.html |date=19 February 2011 }} ''[[Der Spiegel]]'', 27 August 2007</ref> Cardinal [[Joachim Meisner]] did not attend the window's unveiling as he would have preferred it to have been a figurative representation of 20th century Christian [[martyr]]s and said that Richter's window would fit better in a mosque or other prayer house.<ref>{{Cite news
 |issn        = 0362-4331
 |last        = Fortini
 |first       = Amanda
 |title       = Pixelated Stained Glass
 |work        = The New York Times
 |access-date  = 12 January 2008
|date        = 9 December 2007
|url         = https://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/09/magazine/09pixelated.html?_r=1&ref=magazine&oref=slogin
 |url-status  = live
 |archive-url  = https://web.archive.org/web/20160613083729/http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/09/magazine/09pixelated.html?_r=1&ref=magazine&oref=slogin
 |archive-date = 13 June 2016
|df          = dmy-all
}}</ref><ref>[https://www.welt.de/politik/article1148224/Gerhard_Richter_weist_Meisner-Kritik__zurueck_.html Gerhard Richter weist Meisners Kritik zurück] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071214231830/http://www.welt.de/politik/article1148224/Gerhard_Richter_weist_Meisner-Kritik__zurueck_.html |date=14 December 2007 }}, ''[[Die Welt]]'', 31 August 2007. {{in lang|de}}</ref><ref>[http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,2754061,00.html Window by Artist Gerhard Richter Unveiled at Cologne Cathedral] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110803060218/http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,2754061,00.html |date=3 August 2011 }}, ''[[Deutsche Welle]]'', 27 August 2007</ref> A professed atheist with "a strong leaning towards Catholicism", Richter had his three children with his third wife baptized in the Cologne Cathedral.<ref>[https://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/artworld/2008/05/12/080512craw_artworld_schjeldahl "Many-colored Glass: Gerhard Richter and Sigmar Polke do windows"], by [[Peter Schjeldahl]], ''[[The New Yorker]]'', 12 May 2008. Retrieved 5 January 2012] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120114072827/http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/artworld/2008/05/12/080512craw_artworld_schjeldahl |date=14 January 2012 }}</ref>

In September 2020, Richter unveiled his three 30-foot-tall stained-glass windows for the [[Tholey Abbey]], one of the oldest monasteries in Germany.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web|date=17 September 2020|title=Calling It His Last Major Work, Gerhard Richter Unveils Kaleidoscopic Stained-Glass Windows at Germany's Oldest Monastery|url=https://news.artnet.com/exhibitions/gerhard-richter-tholey-abbey-unveiled-1908813|access-date=20 September 2020|website=artnet News|language=en-US}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|title=Gerhard Richter zieht sich aus Malerei zurück: Kirchenfenster sind "letzte Werknummer"|url=https://www.monopol-magazin.de/gerhard-richter-kirchenfenster-sind-sicher-meine-letzte-werknummer|access-date=20 September 2020|website=www.monopol-magazin.de|language=de}}</ref> He called them his last major work, adding that he would focus on drawings and sketches from then on.<ref name=":0" /> The large choir windows were made by Gustva van Treeck, an esteemed glass workshop in nearby [[Munich]].<ref name=":0" /> They are abstract painted works inspired by his "Pattern" series from the 1990s.<ref name=":0" /> An additional 34 figurative stained glass windows designed for the abbey by [[Afghans in Germany|Afghan-German]] Muslim artist [[Mahbuba Maqsoodi]] are expected to be completed by Easter 2021.<ref name=":0" /> The monks of the abbey hoped the windows would promote tourism to the abbey and its town and bring people into the faith.<ref name=":0" />