GERHARD RICHTER: RETROSPECTIVE

30 January 2009 - 3 May 2009

Gerhard Richter ranks among the greatest and most influential artists of our time.
Since the 1960s he has explored, in numerous variations, series and cycles, a visual world whose primary theme is painting itself. Richter refuses to adhere to an established course or artistic language. To underscore his open-ended concept of a work of art, he wrote, "I am not following an agenda, a system, a direction; I have no programme, no style, no issues." Seventy of the German artist’s paintings and important selections of his watercolours and drawings are on show at the Albertina.

The works are largely drawn from three important private collections in Germany: the Frieder Burda Museum and the Böckmann and Ströher collections. Included in the show exclusively during its run at the Albertina are works from an Austrian private collection. Most of the exhibited watercolours are on loan from the Winterthur Art Museum in Switzerland. Other watercolours and drawings have been lent by the artist himself.

The exhibition was previously on view at the Frieder Burda Museum in Baden-Baden and the National Galleries of Scotland in Edinburgh. After the Albertina it will travel to the Küppersmühle Museum of Modern Art in Duisburg. Only the Albertina is presenting an expanded selection of Richter’s works on paper, which have not been shown on this scale for nearly a decade.