Gerhard Richter German, b. 1932

With a career spanning from the 1960s to the present, Gerhard Richter (b. 1932) is widely regarded as one of the most important artists of his generation. His diverse and influential practice reflects a decades-long commitment to exploring painting and its formal and conceptual possibilities. Throughout his career, Richter has probed the relationship between painting and photography, employing a wide range of styles and innovative techniques in a continual rethinking of traditional genres.

 

Richter was born in Dresden, Germany, and studied at the Dresden Hochschule für Bildende Künste from 1951 to 1956, specialising in mural painting. In 1959, he visited Documenta II in Kassel, an experience that profoundly influenced the direction of his work. Following his escape from East Germany in 1961, Richter continued his studies at the Staatliche Kunstakademie in Düsseldorf. There he formed close associations with fellow artists Sigmar Polke, Konrad Lueg (later known as the gallerist Konrad Fischer), and Manfred Kuttner, with whom he helped establish the short-lived movement known as “Capitalist Realism.”

 

From 1964 onward, Richter has held numerous solo exhibitions in leading museums and galleries worldwide. His first solo exhibition in a public institution took place at the Gegenverkehr, Zentrum für aktuelle Kunst in Aachen in 1969. In 1972, he represented Germany as the sole artist in the national pavilion at the Venice Biennale. Richter has also participated in Documenta more times than any other artist, with appearances in 1972, 1977, 1982, 1987, 1992, 1997, 2007, and 2017.

 

His work has been the subject of major solo exhibitions and retrospectives at institutions including the Kunstverein für die Rheinlande und Westfalen, Düsseldorf; Kunsthalle Bremen; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Städtische Kunsthalle, Düsseldorf; Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Tate, London; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; Art Institute of Chicago; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane; The Met Breuer, New York; and The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo.

 

In April 2023, the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin opened Gerhard Richter: 100 Works for Berlin, a long-term presentation featuring works placed on permanent loan by the Gerhard Richter Foundation in 2021, including the monumental Birkenau (2014) cycle. A major retrospective of Richter’s work, spanning more than sixty years of his practice, was presented at the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris between 2025 and 2026.

 

Richter has received numerous prestigious honours, including the Kunstpreis Junger Westen at Kunsthalle Recklinghausen (1967); the Arnold-Bode-Preis, Kassel (1982); the Oskar-Kokoschka-Preis, Vienna (1985); the Goslarer Kaiserring (1988); the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale (1997); and the Praemium Imperiale awarded by the Japan Art Association in Tokyo (1997). In 2007, he received honorary citizenship of Cologne and designed the celebrated stained-glass window for Cologne Cathedral.

 

In 2023, Richter began representation with David Zwirner, which presented a solo exhibition of new and recent abstract works in New York the same year. This was followed by further solo exhibitions at the gallery’s London location in 2024 and its Paris space in 2025. Earlier exhibitions organised by the gallery in New York include Gerhard Richter: Prints & Multiples 1966–1993 (1994), Gerhard Richter: Early Paintings (2000), and Gerhard Richter: Landscapes (2004).

 

Richter’s work is held in major public and private collections worldwide. He lives and works in Cologne.