(born in Dresden in 1932)
Grün-Blau-Rot, 1993, signed, dated on the reverse Richter 93, inscribed with the cat. rais. no. 789–111, oil on canvas, 30 x 40 cm, edition Parkett no. 35 (stamp on the stretcher), on stretcher, (PS)

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In the original shipping box that was sent via post with a 4.50 DM-stamp

Literature:
Gerhard Richter catalogue raisonné, www.gerhard-richter.com, no. 789/1–115, no 111 (colour ill.)
Hubertus Butin, Stefan Gronert (ed.), Gerhard Richter - Editionen 1965–2004, catalogue raisonné 2004, no. 81 (colour ill. - another example)
Art Magazine Parkett Zurich, Edition issue no. 35, March 1993

Provenance:
Private Collection, North Rhine-Westphalia
- directly from Parkett Zurich, 1993

“It all starts with the four pure colours red, yellow, green and blue, whose nuanced gradients and brightness levels produce the scales with 16, 64, 256 and 1024 colours. Any more would be pointless, as we would be unable to clearly distinguish between them.“ (1)

Richter contributed to the March issue of the art journal Parkett (no 35) by creating the oil painting edition Grün-Blau-Rot as a reflection on how to grasp the paradigm of abstract painting; the “squeegee technique” he applied in this series led to an independent artistic style.

In keeping with Richter’s conceptual approach, the title Grün-Blau-Rot describes the three colours and the sequence in which the paint is applied to each small canvas: a base coat of vibrant green was initially spread across the entire surface, upon which Gerhard Richter used a squeegee to sweep a layer of dark blue, followed by radiant red. Here, the individual expanses of colour appear sharply contrasting in places, while in others they slip easily from one to the other, producing an artistic illusion of spaciality in which the lower, somewhat exposed layers of paint seem to drift forward or recede into the background, depending on the brightness and the aerial perspective.

The multifariously coated superimpositions that blend into the optical impression of a foreground and background, a surface and a depth, do not necessarily match the actual order in which the paint was applied, a sequence which indeed can only be apprehended when viewed at close range . (2)

“Richter sidesteps the idea of painting towards what is most attractive or most obvious. He uses a squeegee (scraper) to destroy certain elements, to introduce happenstance over which he has no control. This makes the paintings incredibly complex, and they remain fascinating no matter how often you see them. The paintings never become monotonous, as they consistently refuse to follow a certain taste.“(3)

The smeared, in places patchy structure of the oil paint becomes unpredictable through its application using a squeegee, subordinating the constitution of imagery to the principle of coincidence. It follows, therefore, that the examples produced for Parkett are, each in their own way, clearly distinct.

“The thing is that I don’t have a certain image before my mind’s eye. Instead I want to see the process culminating in a picture that I did not plan at all. So although this method of work with its capriciousness, coincidence, inspiration and destruction permits a certain type of image to emerge, it can never preordain entirely what the precise painting will look like. (…)
br>I want to receive something far more interesting than anything I could ever imagine. “(4)

(1) Notes taken during a press conference, 28 July 2006, in: Gerhard Richter. Text 1961 bis 2007. Schriften, Interviews, Briefe, Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, Cologne, 2008, p. 527
(2) Cf. WVZ Butin p.35
(3) Dietmar Elger, quoted in: Biograf Elger: Richter wird nie langweilig, Focus 8.2.2015
(4) Gerhard Richter. Text 1961 bis 2007. Schriften, Interviews, Briefe, Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, Cologne, 2008, p. 262