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In Short
“With abstract painting we create a better means of approaching what can neither be seen nor understood”
– Gerhard Richter
A Journey to Abstraction
Richter’s Abstraktes Bilds found their clearest articulation between 1989 and 1994 with works like Abstraktes Bild (801-3): his mastery is visible in the crisp, visible layers between its green and yellow slippages. 
In 1962, Richter painted what he considers to be his first mature work, Tisch (Table). A photorealistic image disrupted by gestural swirls of grey paint, the work marks the beginning of Richter’s career-long preoccupation with blurring divisions between abstraction and figuration. _d0bc75b5-bd9c-4680-b9e2-2f8f16c18892.jpg)
Gerhard Richter, Tisch (Table), 1962. Private Collection, on loan to Busch-Reisinger Museum, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, Artwork © Gerhard Richter 2020 (0093) From the 1960s, Richter developed both his abstract and blurred photorealistic languages simultaneously, introducing a dialectic between figuration and abstraction to his practice. He continued to make figurative works, such as Betty and his Seascapes series, during the period.
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Gerhard Richter, Seascape (Cloudy) [235], 1969. Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, Artwork © Gerhard Richter 2020 (0093) 
Gerhard Richter, Betty, 1969. Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Artwork © Gerhard Richter 2020 (0093) During the same period, the artist began to explore abstraction more thoroughly with his first Abstraktes Bilds. 
Gerhard Richter, Abstraktes Bild [421], 1977. Stedelijk van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, The Netherlands, Artwork © Gerhard Richter 2020 (0093)
His abstract works from the 1980s have been read as evocative of scenes from nature. Known for their heterogeneity, they are acclaimed for their reflection of, as Richter himself expressed, “my presence, my reality, my problems, my difficulties and contradictions. They are very topical for me.” 
Gerhard Richter, Abstraktes Bild [581-1], 1984. Artwork © Gerhard Richter 2020 (0093) Richter’s Abstraktes Bilds found their clearest articulation between 1989 and 1994 with works like Abstraktes Bild (801-3): his mastery is visible in the crisp, visible layers between its green and yellow slippages. In 1962, Richter painted what he considers to be his first mature work, Tisch (Table). A photorealistic image disrupted by gestural swirls of grey paint, the work marks the beginning of Richter’s career-long preoccupation with blurring divisions between abstraction and figuration. Gerhard Richter, Tisch (Table), 1962. Private Collection, on loan to Busch-Reisinger Museum, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, Artwork © Gerhard Richter 2020 (0093)
The 90s: An Age of Success
Considering its newfound vigor and majestic palette in relation to Richter’s earlier abstracts, Abstraktes Bild can be read as a manifestation of the immense personal and professional contentment the painter experienced in the early to mid-1990s. His reputation as one of the most influential living artists was cemented in a series of major exhibitions held during the period: first with a 1991 breakthrough retrospective at Tate Gallery, London, then his inclusion in documenta IX the following year, and in 1993, a large-scale, travelling survey of his career, Gerhard Richter: Malerei 1962-1993. Of the latter exhibit, which included 130 works executed over three decades, critic Doris von Drathen observed that "there are exhibitions that, like great milestones, reset the standards in contemporary art. Richter's retrospective, launching now at the ARC [Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris] in Paris, is of this quality."
Whilst painting Abstraktes Bild in 1994, soon after this bout of professional euphoria, Richter was completing a series of adoring portrayals of his new love Sabine Moritz, whom he married and who gave birth to their first child together the following year. Similarly to the passionate affection palpable in his abstracts, his figurative paintings from the same year—such as the photorealist masterpieces Lesende (Reader), High Museum of Art, Atlanta—exude a warmth and tenderness for Sabine, a confident buoyancy unprecedented in Richter’s oeuvre.
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Gerhard Richter, S. with Child [827-1], 1995. Hamburger Kusthalle, Artwork © Gerhard Richter 2020 (0093) The Master's Tool
“For Richter, the squeegee is the most important implement for integrating coincidence into his art. For years, he used it sparingly, but he came to appreciate how the structure of paint applied with a squeegee can never be completely controlled. It thus introduces a moment of surprise that often enables him to extricate himself from a creative dead-end, destroying a prior, unsatisfactory effort and opening the door to a fresh start"
– Dietmar ElgerIn the mid-1980s, Richter started utilizing a homemade squeegee to smear and scrape paint across his canvases. A counterpoint to modernism’s fetishism of the artist’s hand, his use of the squeegee introduced a new instrument, the effect of which straddles the line between intention and coincidence. Utilizing a wet-on-wet procedure, in which he applied the top shade before the prior layers completely dried, Richter created distinctive formations of paint that both melt into each other and separate in a complex lattice of vivid metamorphoses of colors.
Painting as Truth
The investigation of painting’s ability to reveal truth is present in Richter’s entire oeuvre, from his photo-realist paintings to his abstracts to his softy-blurred landscapes and everything in between—each work reflects Richter’s ambivalence towards the medium, asking: though both abstract and figurative painting strive towards representation of internal or external truths, can that ever actually be captured? Are painting’s efforts to represent truth futile? In our attempts to imitate reality or truth, are we actually obscuring it?
A triumph of his mature period, Abstraktes Bild presents Richter’s dilemma concerning the adequacy of representation both conceptually and formally: the work hints at an internal truth existing on the canvas, which is then obscured by the myriad layers that rest atop it, alluding to his own endeavors to use paint as a truth-telling device, though it always ends up actually concealing what meant to be represented. In the sense, his abstract works address the same issues his figurative paintings do in their foggy, blurred renderings of historical or family photographs. “Abstract paintings are like fictitious models because they visualize a reality which we can neither see nor describe but which we nevertheless conclude exists,” Richter concluded in a catalogue text for documenta 7. “[But] with abstract painting we create a better means of approaching what can neither be seen nor understood because abstract painting illustrates with the greatest clarity.”“I constantly despair at my own incapacity, at the impossibility of ever accomplishing anything, of painting a valid, true picture or of even of knowing what such a thing ought to look like. But then I always have the hope that, if I persevere, it might one day happen. And this hope is nurtured every time something appears, a scattered, partial, initial hint of something which reminds me of what I long for, or which conveys a hint of it” – Gerhard Richter
Collector's Digest
One of the significant contemporary artists working today, Richter’s innovative approach is currently being celebrated in his major retrospective at the Met Breuer, Gerhard Richter: Painting After All.
Garnering formidable institutional acclaim for decades, numerous Richter abstracts already belong to major museums and public collections worldwide.
Provenance
Galerie Fred Jahn, Munich
Collection Norbert Königs, Aachen
Galerie Springer & Winckler, Berlin
Barbara Mathes Gallery, New York
Acquired from the above by the present owner in August 2000Exhibited
Carré d'Art, Museé d'Art Contemporain de Nîmes, Gerhard Richter. 100 Bilder, June 15 – September 15, 1996, p. 59 (illustrated)
Aachen-Kornelimünster, Ehemalige Reichsabtei, Gerhard Richter. Werke aus Aachener Sammlungen, November 14, 1999 – January 9, 2000, no. 26, p. 94 (illustrated, p. 63)
New York, Barbara Mathes Gallery, Gerhard Richter: Paintings from the 1980s, February 1 – April 13, 2002
Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Until Now: Collecting the New (1960-2010), April 16 – August 1, 2010Literature
Gerhard Richter, exh. cat., Anthony d’Offay Gallery, London, 1998, no. 801-3, p. 103 (illustrated, p. 86)
Gerhard Richter, exh. cat., K20 Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Dusseldorf, 2005, no. 801-3, p. 309 (illustrated, p. 268)
Dietmar Elger, ed., Gerhard Richter: Catalogue Raisonné 1988-1994, vol. 4 (Nos. 652-1 – 805-6), Ostfildern, 2015, no. 801-3, p. 577 (illustrated)Artist Biography
Gerhard Richter
German • 1932
Powerhouse painter Gerhard Richter has been a key player in defining the formal and ideological agenda for painting in contemporary art. His instantaneously recognizable canvases literally and figuratively blur the lines of representation and abstraction. Uninterested in classification, Richter skates between unorthodoxy and realism, much to the delight of institutions and the market alike.
Richter's color palette of potent hues is all substance and "no style," in the artist's own words. From career start in 1962, Richter developed both his photorealist and abstracted languages side-by-side, producing voraciously and evolving his artistic style in short intervals. Richter's illusory paintings find themselves on the walls of the world's most revered museums—for instance, London’s Tate Modern displays the Cage (1) – (6), 2006 paintings that were named after experimental composer John Cage and that inspired the balletic 'Rambert Event' hosted by Phillips Berkeley Square in 2016.
Property from a Midwestern Collector
17
Abstraktes Bild (801-3)
signed, inscribed and dated “801-3 Richter 1994” on the reverse
oil on canvas
28 1/8 x 24 1/8 in. (71.4 x 61.3 cm)
Painted in 1994.
Estimate
$2,000,000 - 3,000,000
Sold for $3,680,000
Amanda Lo Iacono
Head of Evening Sale
New York
+1 212 940 1278
20th Century and Contemporary Art Evening Sale
New York Auction 2 July 2020
1
Titus Kaphar
Untitled (red thread lady)
Estimate $40,000 - 60,000
Sold for $187,500
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2
Matthew Wong
Mood Room
Estimate $60,000 - 80,000
Sold for $848,000
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3
Lucas Arruda
Untitled
Estimate $80,000 - 120,000
Sold for $350,000
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4
Helen Frankenthaler
Head of the Meadow
Estimate $600,000 - 800,000
Sold for $3,020,000
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5
Joan Mitchell
Noël
Estimate $9,500,000 - 12,500,000
Sold for $11,062,500
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6
Christina Quarles
Placed
Estimate $70,000 - 100,000
Sold for $400,000
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7
Francis Picabia
Portrait de femme
Estimate $250,000 - 350,000
Sold for $350,000
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8
KAWS
COMPANION (DETAIL OF CROWD SHOT)
Estimate $1,200,000 - 1,800,000
Sold for $1,380,000
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9
Robert Nava
The Tunnel
Estimate $40,000 - 60,000
Sold for $162,500
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10
Jean-Michel Basquiat
Victor 25448
Estimate $8,000,000 - 12,000,000
Sold for $9,250,000
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11
George Condo
Stump Head
Estimate $900,000 - 1,200,000
Sold for $1,050,000
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12
Banksy
Monkey Poison
Estimate $1,800,000 - 2,500,000
Sold for $2,000,000
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13
Maxfield Parrish
Humpty Dumpty
Estimate $400,000 - 600,000
Sold for $740,000
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14
Otis Kwame Kye Quaicoe
Shade of Black
Estimate $20,000 - 30,000
Sold for $250,000
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15
Charles White
Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child
Estimate $700,000 - 1,000,000
Sold for $800,000
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16
Ali Banisadr
Motherboard
Estimate $400,000 - 600,000
Sold for $572,000
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17
Gerhard Richter
Abstraktes Bild (801-3)
Estimate $2,000,000 - 3,000,000
Sold for $3,680,000
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18
Albert Oehlen
Im Museum II
Estimate $600,000 - 800,000
Sold for $560,000
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19
Thomas Struth
Notre Dame, Paris
Estimate $300,000 - 500,000
Sold for $400,000
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20
David Hammons
Hidden Drawing (Jordan begins 8th season as No. 1)
Estimate $150,000 - 200,000
Sold for $181,250
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21
Julio González
L'arlequin / Pierrot ou Colombine
Estimate $500,000 - 700,000
Sold for $920,000
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22
Amoako Boafo
Joy in Purple
Estimate $50,000 - 70,000
Sold for $668,000
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23
Fernando Botero
Woman
Estimate $800,000 - 1,200,000
Sold for $1,004,000
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24
Donald Judd
Untitled
Estimate $550,000 - 750,000
Sold for $680,000
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25
Sturtevant
Stella Gran Cairo
Estimate $400,000 - 600,000
Sold for $620,000
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