Gerhard Richter (*1932)

In 1966 Gerhard Richter took colour charts and colour cards, of the kind found in any artists' supplies shop, and used these as pictorial motifs. The first painting in his catalogue of works, which starts in 1962, were after photographs from family albums and magazines. His 'colour panels' similarly relate to familiar motifs. Here the tools and working methods of the painter become the subject of the painting. Richter took the forms and structures of his motifs and set them against the traditions of geometric abstraction, and developed them on that basis as planar structures. Richter continued to work on this series until 1974, constantly reducing the subjective decisions on the part of the artist and at the same time maximising the perceptual potential of the finished work. ___