Daniel Richter - Contemporary Art Evening Sale London Friday, October 12, 2007 | Phillips

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  • Provenance

    Contemporary Fine Arts, Berlin

  • Exhibited

    Hamburger Kunsthalle, Daniel Richter - Die Palette 1995 - 2007, May 4 - August 5, 2007

  • Literature

    D. Dath, C. Heinrich, K. Scott, Daniel Richter - Die Palette 1995 - 2007, Cologne, 2007, p. 116 (illustrated)

  • Catalogue Essay

    Daniel Richter, born in 1962 is considered a post-pop painter and an artist who generates pieces that engage the viewer with immediate expression. His works encompass various and, often times, contrasting styles and themes of existing visual resources and quotations. In the present lot, Richter portrays a dark figure riding a horse through a thickly painted forest. The horse and rider are rendered in a way that leads one to feel as though they are riding with a sense of fear and urgency; fleeing from or racing to some unknown destination. However, the component of fear is softened by the clever use of tonality, achieved by contrasting the rider against a vast spectrum of bold colors. Richter’s use of tonality creates an intensely stimulating visual experience that plays an important role in evoking an emotional response from the viewer. Richter draws from a wide range of influences. The influence of Munch, Ensor and Goya, Immendorff and Doig can be seen in his work. He often works within the realm of nature as illustrated in the present lot. Specifically, the use of nature as a compositional device shares many similarities with a number of Doig’s works in his use of trees and branches to partially obstruct the depicted subject matter.

    In the words of Richter, “the more you know about the historical or ecological background of images, the more you can interpret, but it's not necessarily the truth about it…” (W. Baerwaldt in Daniel Richter: Pink Flag White Horse, 1994, n.p.)

    Thus by using trees and branches to partially obstruct the subject matter, Richter allows the viewer to come to his own conclusions about the painting as a whole. In Trevelfast, Richter invites the viewer to visually consume the atmosphere of the painting and its subject matter - the branches are barren and sway with the movement of the horse and rider giving an impression of a cold arid climate. Furthermore, this approach asks the viewer to look at the entire work and not just the horse and rider, to consider both the background and foreground as integral parts of the composition, despite the possible obstructions the viewer may encounter. With its large scale and impressive composition, Trevelfast is a stand-out work by the artist. Loaded with historical implications, Richter's painting extends beyond symbolic reading; its narrative takes on the qualities of magical realism, extending a shiver of supernatural mysticism.

214

Trevelfast

2004
Oil on canvas.
111 3/8 x 91 3/8 in. (282.9 x 232.1 cm).

Estimate
£200,000 - 300,000 ≠♠†

Sold for £378,400

Contemporary Art Evening Sale

Evening Sale
13 October 2007, 4pm
London